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74–807 2013

HEARING ON THE USE OF TECHNOLOGY TO 

BETTER TARGET BENEFITS AND ELIMINATE 

WASTE, FRAUD, AND ABUSE 

HEARING 

BEFORE THE

SUBCOMMITTEE ON HUMAN RESOURCES 

OF THE

COMMITTEE ON WAYS AND MEANS 

U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 

ONE HUNDRED TWELFTH CONGRESS 

SECOND SESSION 

April 19, 2012 

Serial No. 112–HR11 

Printed for the use of the Committee on Ways and Means 

( 


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ii 

COMMITTEE ON WAYS AND MEANS 

DAVE CAMP, Michigan, Chairman 

WALLY HERGER, California 

SAM JOHNSON, Texas 

KEVIN BRADY, Texas 

PAUL RYAN, Wisconsin 

DEVIN NUNES, California 

PATRICK J. TIBERI, Ohio 

GEOFF DAVIS, Kentucky 

DAVID G. REICHERT, Washington 

CHARLES W. BOUSTANY, JR., Louisiana 

PETER J. ROSKAM, Illinois 

JIM GERLACH, Pennsylvania 

TOM PRICE, Georgia 

VERN BUCHANAN, Florida 

ADRIAN SMITH, Nebraska 

AARON SCHOCK, Illinois 

LYNN JENKINS, Kansas 

ERIK PAULSEN, Minnesota 

KENNY MARCHANT, Texas 

RICK BERG, North Dakota 

DIANE BLACK, Tennessee 

TOM REED, New York 

SANDER M. LEVIN, Michigan 

CHARLES B. RANGEL, New York 

FORTNEY PETE STARK, California 

JIM MCDERMOTT, Washington 

JOHN LEWIS, Georgia 

RICHARD E. NEAL, Massachusetts 

XAVIER BECERRA, California 

LLOYD DOGGETT, Texas 

MIKE THOMPSON, California 

JOHN B. LARSON, Connecticut 

EARL BLUMENAUER, Oregon 

RON KIND, Wisconsin 

BILL PASCRELL, JR., New Jersey 

SHELLEY BERKLEY, Nevada 

JOSEPH CROWLEY, New York 

JENNIFER SAFAVIAN, Staff Director and General Counsel 

JANICE MAYS, Minority Chief Counsel 

SUBCOMMITTEE ON HUMAN RESOURCES 

GEOFF DAVIS, Kentucky, Chairman 

ERIK PAULSEN, Minnesota 

RICK BERG, North Dakota 

TOM REED, New York 

TOM PRICE, Georgia 

DIANE BLACK, Tennessee 

CHARLES W. BOUSTANY, JR., Louisiana 

LLOYD DOGGETT, Texas 

JIM MCDERMOTT, Washington 

JOHN LEWIS, Georgia 

JOSEPH CROWLEY, New York 


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C O N T E N T S 

Page 

Advisory of April 19, 2012 announcing the hearing ............................................. 2 

WITNESSES 

Panel 1: 

Ms. Donna Roy, Executive Director, National Information Exchange Model 

(NIEM), U.S. Department of Homeland Security, Testimony .......................... 7 

The Honorable George Sheldon Acting Assistant Secretary, Administration 

for Children and Families, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, 

Testimony ............................................................................................................. 23 

Panel 2: 

Mr. Robert Doar Commissioner, Human Resources Administration, New York 

City, Testimony .................................................................................................... 44 

Ms. Ginger Zielinskie Executive Director, Benefits Data Trust, Testimony 54 

Mr. Darryl McDonald Executive Vice President, Teradata Corporation, Testimony ...................................................................................................................... 63 

Mr. Campbell Pryde President and Chief Executive Officer, XBRL US, Testimony ...................................................................................................................... 74 


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(1) 

HEARING ON THE USE OF TECHNOLOGY 

TO BETTER TARGET BENEFITS AND 

ELIMINATE WASTE, FRAUD, AND ABUSE 

THURSDAY, APRIL 19, 2012 

U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, COMMITTEE ON WAYS AND MEANS, SUBCOMMITTEE ON HUMAN RESOURCES, Washington, DC. 

The Subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 10:03 a.m. in 

Room 1100, Longworth House Office Building, the Honorable Geoff 

Davis [Chairman of the Subcommittee] presiding. 

[The advisory announcing the hearing follows:] 


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HEARING ADVISORY 

Davis Announces Hearing on the Use of 

Technology to Better Target Benefits and 

Eliminate Waste, Fraud, and Abuse 

Thursday, April 19, 2012 

Congressman Geoff Davis (R–KY), Chairman of the Subcommittee on Human Resources of the Committee on Ways and Means, today announced that the Subcommittee will hold a hearing on the use of technology to better target benefits and 

eliminate waste, fraud, and abuse. The hearing will take place on Thursday, 

April 19, 2012, in 1100 Longworth House Office Building, beginning at 10:00 

A.M. 

In view of the limited time available to hear witnesses, oral testimony at this 

hearing will be from invited witnesses only. Witnesses will include representatives 

from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS), as well as other public and private sector 

experts on the current status of and the potential for technology to improve the administration of public benefits. However, any individual or organization not scheduled for an oral appearance may submit a written statement for consideration by 

the Committee and for inclusion in the printed record of the hearing. 

BACKGROUND: 

During the 112th Congress, the President has signed into law bipartisan, no-cost 

legislation drafted by the Human Resources Subcommittee to standardize data used 

in child welfare, Temporary Assistance to Needy Families (TANF), and unemployment insurance programs. Efforts to standardize program data are designed to improve the efficiency of these programs, allow them to better communicate with one 

another, and improve program integrity by ensuring that program benefits are paid 

only to eligible individuals. The use of consistent identification codes and formatting 

methods will allow for more timely flow of data that could then be easily searched 

and analyzed to better target benefits and identify waste, fraud, and abuse. These 

provisions were enacted in the 2011 Child and Family Services Improvement and 

Innovation Act (P.L. 112–34) and the Middle Class Tax Relief and Job Creation Act 

of 2012 (P.L. 112–96). 

The Subcommittee’s efforts to standardize data are reflected on a broader scale 

by the bipartisan H.R. 3339, The Standard Data and Technology Advancement Act, 

or the ‘‘Standard DATA Act,’’ introduced by Chairman Davis and Ranking Member 

Doggett (D–TX). This legislation requires the relevant agency secretary or program 

administrator to establish consistent requirements for the electronic content and format of data used in the administration of several additional human services programs established in the Social Security Act, including Child Support Enforcement 

and Supplemental Security Income. 

One example for improving the exchange of data among programs recommended 

by the enacted and proposed legislation is the National Information Exchange Model 

(NIEM). NIEM provides a data model, governance, and methodologies to engage 

stakeholders in adopting a standards-based approach to exchanging information. 

Initially used to coordinate the exchange of law enforcement information, HHS is 

a recent adopter and advocate for transitioning human services programs to NIEM. 

In announcing the hearing, Chairman Davis stated, ‘‘The progress made in the 

last year is only the first step in a much longer process of bringing human 

service programs into the 21st century. The standardization activities reviewed in this hearing will promote transparency, flexibility, and accountability by ensuring data can be shared across the various information technology platforms used by federal and state agencies. Improving the use of 

this program data will benefit program recipients and taxpayers alike by 

ensuring efficient and effective stewardship of scarce taxpayer funds.’’ 


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FOCUS OF THE HEARING: 

The hearing will focus on current and future data standardization efforts designed 

to increase the use of technology to improve the administration of public benefit programs. 

DETAILS FOR SUBMISSION OF WRITTEN COMMENTS: 

Please Note: Any person(s) and/or organization(s) wishing to submit for the hearing record must follow the appropriate link on the hearing page of the Committee 

website and complete the informational forms. From the Committee homepage, 

http://waysandmeans.house.gov, select ‘‘Hearings.’’ Select the hearing for which you 

would like to submit, and click on the link entitled, ‘‘Click here to provide a submission for the record.’’ Once you have followed the online instructions, submit all requested information. ATTACH your submission as a Word document, in compliance 

with the formatting requirements listed below, by the close of business on 

Thursday, May 3, 2012. Finally, please note that due to the change in House mail 

policy, the U.S. Capitol Police will refuse sealed-package deliveries to all House Office Buildings. For questions, or if you encounter technical problems, please call 

(202) 225–1721 or (202) 225–3625. 

FORMATTING REQUIREMENTS: 

The Committee relies on electronic submissions for printing the official hearing 

record. As always, submissions will be included in the record according to the discretion of the Committee. The Committee will not alter the content of your submission, 

but we reserve the right to format it according to our guidelines. Any submission 

provided to the Committee by a witness, any supplementary materials submitted for 

the printed record, and any written comments in response to a request for written 

comments must conform to the guidelines listed below. Any submission or supplementary item not in compliance with these guidelines will not be printed, but will 

be maintained in the Committee files for review and use by the Committee. 

1. All submissions and supplementary materials must be provided in Word format and MUST 

NOT exceed a total of 10 pages, including attachments. Witnesses and submitters are advised 

that the Committee relies on electronic submissions for printing the official hearing record. 

2. Copies of whole documents submitted as exhibit material will not be accepted for printing. 

Instead, exhibit material should be referenced and quoted or paraphrased. All exhibit material 

not meeting these specifications will be maintained in the Committee files for review and use 

by the Committee. 

3. All submissions must include a list of all clients, persons and/or organizations on whose 

behalf the witness appears. A supplemental sheet must accompany each submission listing the 

name, company, address, telephone, and fax numbers of each witness. 

The Committee seeks to make its facilities accessible to persons with disabilities. 

If you are in need of special accommodations, please call 202–225–1721 or 202–226– 

3411 TTD/TTY in advance of the event (four business days notice is requested). 

Questions with regard to special accommodation needs in general (including availability of Committee materials in alternative formats) may be directed to the Committee as noted above. 

Note: All Committee advisories and news releases are available on the World 

Wide Web at http://www.waysandmeans.house.gov/

f 

. 

Chairman DAVIS. Welcome to the most recent installment in the 

Subcommittee’s ongoing efforts to promote the standardization of 

program data within the cross public benefit programs. 

One of the key purposes for today’s hearing will be to review the 

progress that has already been made with relevant agencies and 

outside experts, as well as consider next steps. 

It was just 13 months ago that this Subcommittee held its first 

hearing on the use of data matching to improve customer service, 

program integrity, and taxpayer savings. 


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One of the initial factors driving this effort was the rising level of Federal improper payments which peaked at $125 billion in fiscal year 2010. 

It was about much more than that. It really became about making Government work smarter, faster, and more efficiently for both 

beneficiaries and taxpayers. 

We should expect more from Government. We should expect it 

not to operate from an era before the personal computer existed, 

but one from the 21st Century using integrated technologies and 

information systems, not unlike the private sector uses today in 

competitive industry, and also most consumers do within their 

homes today in terms of how they manage their finances and their 

purchases. 

Companies like Google and Facebook have grown based on their 

ability to help customers search, access, share and interpret data. 

It is long past time for Government to use those same sorts of 

tools to improve the services we offer to help the less fortunate and 

the taxpayer dollars spent on them. 

In September, the President signed our bipartisan and bicameral 

Child and Family Services Improvement and Innovation Act, which 

codified into law for the first time in history our data standards 

language for all child welfare programs. 

This was followed by another example of bipartisanship when the 

same language was included in the Middle Class Tax Relief and 

Job Creation Act of 2012, and applied to the Unemployment Insurance and Temporary Assistance to Needy Families programs. 

We hope to expand this effort through H.R. 4282, which was recently introduced by Representative Berg and Ranking Member 

Doggett and co-sponsored by the entire Subcommittee. 

This bill would apply the same data standardization language to 

the Child Support Enforcement Program under our jurisdiction. 

With enactment in three programs already, Congress has sent a 

clear bipartisan message that it wants to improve the operation of 

public benefit programs through data standardization. 

H.R. 3339, the Standard DATA Act, would apply this provision 

more broadly to all programs within the Subcommittee’s jurisdiction. 

We believe this bill is firm but flexible so that those with the 

most knowledge of how these programs operate can come together 

to craft a better path forward. 

We also need to hold the Executive Branch accountable for its 

role in modernizing the operation of Government programs. That is 

why we have asked several key agencies, the Department of Health 

and Human Services and the Department of Homeland Security, to 

testify at this hearing about their progress and plans for the future. 

We plan to continue expanding this effort across other programs 

that serve similar populations so we can achieve a truly beneficiary-centered approach to how these programs are run. 

We also need a more complete view of how many people receive 

benefits under multiple programs, which will help to better target 

benefits to people in need, as well as improve understanding of program effectiveness, especially given our budget challenges ahead. 

We simply have no choice but to take these steps to make sure proVerDate Mar 15 2010 19:17 Oct 29, 2013 Jkt 074807 PO 00000 Frm 00008 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 I:\WAYS\OUT\74807.XXX 74807

kgrant on DSKB33CYQ1 with HEARINGS
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grams operate more efficiently and to provide benefits to those 

most in need and only to those in need. 

We look forward to all testimony from both of our panels. We 

also look forward to continuing to work in a bipartisan manner to 

improve how public benefit programs serve the children and families who depend on them, while assuring taxpayer dollars are used 

efficiently and effectively. 

Now I would like to turn the microphone over to my friend and 

partner in this effort over the last year and a half, the Ranking 

Member, Lloyd Doggett from Texas. 

Mr. DOGGETT. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you for the 

great personal interest that you have shown in this whole data 

matching effort and for the partnership we have enjoyed in working as you mentioned on child welfare legislation on data matching 

for Temporary Assistance for Needy Families and for Unemployment Insurance Programs. 

It is important to improve the administration of public programs 

through technology. It benefits taxpayers and it benefits those who 

rely on those programs. 

Abuse of Government programs, whether by multinational pharmaceutical companies or a person collecting unemployment insurance is never acceptable. It denies the benefits that are needed to 

others, and it unjustly treats the taxpayer. 

I hope we can continue to make progress on standardizing data 

that would include incorporating existing non-proprietary standards such as XBRL, that has the support of the Texas Society of 

Certified Public Accountants. 

I think the better use of data matching and data sharing across 

agencies improves our efforts to reduce fraud and abuse. We want 

to get these benefits to those who need them and who are eligible 

for them. 

My interest in this is not only about program integrity but seeing 

that programs satisfy their legislative purpose. 

This is particularly true when there are so many families in my 

home State of Texas and across the country that struggle to maintain their footing. 

In Bexar County, for example, one in four children are poor. 

We must find a way to ensure that our most vulnerable citizens 

are provided with the assistance that they need to weather economic storms, and improving the ability to do this through better 

data is one important aspect of outreach. 

Those efforts are now underway in Philadelphia, through a collaboration between the State of Pennsylvania and the Benefits 

Data Trust, a non-profit organization from whom we will hear this 

morning. 

The Benefits Data Trust has been able to use state data to determine if an individual who is receiving assistance from a certain 

program is likely eligible for assistance in another. It is true that 

there are too many duplicative programs, but the total benefits provided by all of them, if delivered efficiently in the most effective 

way, probably do not begin to meet the needs that are out there. 

Identifying and connecting low income individuals to the services 

for which they are eligible allows the organization to work in a cost 

effective manner while also dramatically improving the outcomes of 


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those individuals who are to receive benefits and our economy in 

the process. 

I think this is particularly relevant to the current attention on 

the delivery of food assistance through SNAP. 

A report released recently by the Department of Agriculture 

found that SNAP benefits helped to reduce national poverty in a 

significant way. 

These benefits play an important role in providing critical assistance that I saw recently at the food bank on the west side of San 

Antonio. 

Mr. Chairman, I look forward to hearing from today’s witnesses 

and continuing our work together to improve the outreach, the efficiency, and the effectiveness of these vital public initiatives 

through the use of technology. 

Thank you so much. 

Chairman DAVIS. I thank the gentleman. I want to remind our 

witnesses to limit their oral statements to five minutes, please. 

However, without objection, all of the written testimony will be 

made part of the permanent record. 

Our first panel this morning, we will be hearing from Ms. Donna 

Roy, Executive Director, National Information Exchange Model or 

NIEM, U.S. Department of Homeland Security. 

The Honorable George Sheldon, Acting Assistant Secretary, Administration for Children and Families, U.S. Department of Health 

and Human Services. 

We happened to stand together behind President Obama as he 

signed into law that very first piece of data standardization language on September 30 of last year. 

We are excited to have you here. 

Before we move on to our testimony, without objection, I would 

like to change pace for one moment and recognize Dr. Price, Chairman of the Republican Policy Committee, who is a member of the 

Subcommittee, and able to be here with us today, who would like 

to introduce a witness from his home state who will speak on our 

second panel today. 

Mr. PRICE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I apologize for going out 

of order and I appreciate the indulgence of the Chair. 

I wanted to take this opportunity, not knowing the schedule that 

is going to break as the morning proceeds, to introduce Darryl 

McDonald, who is going to be on our second panel. 

Darryl is the Executive Vice President of Teradata Corporation, 

a wonderful corporate citizen and job creator in Georgia and in my 

District. 

Teradata is responsible for providing strategic direction for their 

products, solutions and services, and is among the world’s largest 

companies focused solely on analytics and data warehousing. 

Teradata is a growing business with over 8,000 employees worldwide. 

Mr. McDonald has deep roots in Georgia, attended the University 

of Georgia, and can give a good ‘‘go Dogs’’ with the best of them. 

He currently lives in the 6th Congressional District, and his testimony on the second panel today will highlight how both business 

and Government can benefit from technology and ultimately save 

the taxpayers money. 


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I am pleased and honored to introduce and welcome Darryl 

McDonald to our committee. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Chairman DAVIS. Thank you. With that, Ms. Roy, please proceed with your testimony. 

STATEMENT OF DONNA ROY, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, NATIONAL INFORMATION EXCHANGE MODEL (NIEM), U.S. DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY 

Ms. ROY. Chairman Davis, Ranking Member Doggett and Members of the Subcommittee, thank you and good morning. 

My name is Donna Roy. I am the Executive Director of the Information Sharing Environment Office in the Department of Homeland Security’s Office of the Chief Information Officer. 

I also serve as the Executive Director of the National Information Exchange Program or NIEM. I have had the privilege of holding this position for the past three and a half years. 

I appreciate the opportunity to discuss with you today how NIEM 

helps Government agencies enhance mission performance, gain efficiencies, and reduce costs associated with exchanging information 

across IT systems. 

NIEM is a federally supported Government-wide initiative that 

helps communities of people with common interests connect and exchange information in order to successfully and efficiently accomplish their missions. 

NIEM is not a system or a database, nor does it transmit, store 

or engage in operational data storing. Rather, NIEM provides the 

tools, the training, and importantly, the community driven support 

to assist users in adopting a standards based approach. 

It is fitting that we are having this discussion today on the seventh birthday of NIEM. The program began on April 19 in 2005 

when the CIOs of DOJ and DHS signed an agreement to establish 

the interagency program. 

This action brought to fruition the work started by half a dozen 

or so practitioners at the state and local level of government who 

had worked to build a national model for sharing law enforcement 

and homeland security information. 

Today, all 50 states and 18 Federal agencies are committed to 

using NIEM in some capacity and at varying levels of maturity. 

NIEM is now recognized and used by international partners, 

such as Canada, Mexico, and member countries of the European 

Union. 

Despite NIEM’s growth over the past seven years, the program 

has maintained at its core a strong commitment to community involvement. 

In my opinion, this is one of the main reasons why NIEM stands 

apart as an example of a Government collaboration at its best. 

Whether NIEM is involved in a situation to protect citizens, respond to disasters, promote public health, or provide needed support services to children and their families, the lack of standardization in information exchange across this broad landscape of systems, agencies, and jurisdictions creates challenges in providing effective and efficient citizen services, often leading to fraud, waste 

and abuse. 


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The challenge is clear. How do we connect the wide array of systems across the whole of Government while supporting an appropriate privacy and security framework flexible enough to accommodate the diverse laws, regulations and policies across the United 

States. 

The majority of the work within NIEM is accomplished within a 

strong and active community of volunteers at the state and local 

level. 

The NIEM community stewards a common vocabulary and a mature framework to facilitate information exchange. NIEM breaks 

down agency stovepipes and creates opportunities for agencies to 

share information quickly and effectively without rebuilding systems. 

As an example of success, NIEM has helped the State of Colorado connect child support systems with judicial processing systems, improving the speed of administrative case processing and 

execution of child support orders. 

The project reduced manual data entry, eliminated most of the 

paper forms, and improved data reliability. In effect, NIEM helped 

Colorado provide faster, cheaper, and better services to its citizens. 

In the difficult fiscal times facing the Government today, it is 

core systemic improvements that will save scarce financial resources, improving the effectiveness in Government and ultimately 

making our country safer. 

NIEM is one of these rare systemic improvement opportunities. 

As a former Marine who possesses a sincere passion for good government, I am continually impressed and energized by the level of 

support across the NIEM community. 

On a more personal note, as the daughter of a woman who aged 

out of the system, and as a former foster mom, I am particularly 

touched by the positive changes NIEM is making in the lives of the 

most vulnerable in our society, which are the children and the families that support them. 

Again, I appreciate the opportunity to testify before you today, 

and I look forward to answering any questions you may have. 

[The prepared statement of Ms. Roy follows:] 


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kgrant on DSKB33CYQ1 with HEARINGS74807.001.eps

TESTIMONY OF 

Donna M.Roy 

Executive Director, National Information Exchange Model 

Executive Dil'ecfor, Information Sharing Environment, 

Office of the ChiefInformafion Officer 

U.S. Department of Homeland Security 

Before the 

House Committee on \Vays and Means 

Human Resources Subcommittee 

April 19, 2012 

Chairman Davis, Ranking Member Doggett, and Members of the subcommittee, thank you and 

good morning. My name is Donna Roy, and I am the Executive Director of the Information 

Sharing Environment within the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Office of the Chief 

Infonnation Officer. I also serve as the Executive Director for the National Infonnation 

Exchange Model (NIEM) program, a position I have had the privilege of holding for the past three 

and a half years. This testimony will provide an overview ofNIEM, explain the NIEM structure 

and governance, and discuss select examples of how federal, state, local, tribal, and territorial 

governments use NIEM to share critical information. Most importantly, I will discuss how 

government can utilize NIEM to enhance mission performance and gain efficiencies. 

What is NIEM? 

First, allow me to explain what NIEM is and why it is so important. NIEM is a 

federally-supported, government-wide initiative that helps communities of people with common 

mission interests connect and exchange information in order to successfully and efficiently 

accomplish their missions. NIEM is not a system or database; nor does it transmit, store, or 

otherwise engage in operational data sharing. Rather, NIEM provides the tools, training, and 
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community-driven support needed to assist users in adopting a standards-based approach to 

exchanging information. 

NIEM makes it possible for organizations at several different levels and jurisdictions to share 

critical data, empowering individuals to make informed decisions that improve efficiency and help 

advance missions goals. In my opinion, NIEM is an example of government collaboration at its 

best. 

NIEM was originally created as a best practice at the state, local, tribal, and territorial levels of 

government with funding received primarily from the u.s. Department of Justice's (DOl's) 

Bureau of Justice Assistance (BJA). NIEM was founded to address the need for quicker access to 

accurate, complete, and actionable information to enable better decision making. In the business 

of government, inforn1ed decisions can translate into saving time, taxpayer money and, most 

importantly, lives. 

Whether the situation involves protecting citizens, responding to disasters, promoting public 

health, identifying welfare assistance eligibility, or providing needed support services to children 

and their families, effective decision-making requires infonnation that often must be exchanged 

across a broad landscape of systems, agencies, and jurisdictions. Citizens, government partners, 

and practitioners need access to the right information, in the right tonnat, at the right time to do 

their jobs effectively. The challenge is clear: how do we connect, with an appropriate policy 

framework and security model in place, the wide array of systems operating across the whole of 

government? 

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NIEM is designed to enable government to address this problem. By providing a common 

vocabulary and mature framework to facilitate information exchange, NIEM enables diverse 

communities to "speak the same language" as they share, exchange, accept, and translate 

infonnation efficiently. 

Instead of seeking nationwide integration of all local, state, territorial, tribal, and federal 

infonnation systems, NIEM focuses on the development of shared services using cross-boundary 

information exchange across multiple levels of government. In this way, NIEM breaks down 

agency stovepipes and creates the opportunity for agencies to share infonnation quickly and 

effectively without rebuilding systems. All 50 states and 18 federal agencies (as of March 2012) 

are committed to use NIEM in some capacity and at differing levels of maturity. 

Because of its unique approach, NIEM does not require building a new system or purchasing new 

technology. NIEM is technology agnostic and addresses the format of data as it is shared between 

systems. This allows communities of interest to collectively leverage NIEM irrespective of the 

particular technologies used within any individual organization. This approach enables federal 

agencies to keep systems compartmentalized and ensure appropriate safeguards while at the same 

time wrapping them with a set of standardized exchanges, an appropriate policy framework, and 

an appropriate security model. The end result is that stakeholders at all levels are able to put 

infonnation out and receive information into their existing systems, enabling the flow of 

information across levels and jurisdictions. 

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NIEM Governance 

Next, I would like to explain the stmcture and governance of the NIEM program. The NIEM 

program is supported by a joint program office that is administratively housed within DHS's Office 

of the ChiefInformation Officer (CIO). The program office receives strategic direction from an 

Executive Steering Council (ESC) made up ofthe ClOs from DHS, DOJ, and Health and Human 

Services (HHS), as well as voting members and ex-officio members consisting of representatives 

of the Program Manager-Information Sharing Environment, the Office of Management and 

Budget eGovernment program, the Global Justice Information Sharing Initiative, and the National 

Association of State ChiefInformation Officers. 

The NIEM Program Management Office (PMO) is the operational arm for NIEM. The NIEM 

PMO executes the vision ofNIEM established by the ESC while managing NIEM's day-to-day 

operations. The PMO coordinates with communities of interest, principal stakeholders, and other 

infornlation sharing and exchange initiatives to promote collaboration and interest in NIEM 

priorities. 

To carry out its mission, the NIEM PMO receives support from a framework of three national 

committees, comprised of stakeholders from various levels, that provide community consensus 

recommendations to ensure the program responds to the requirements of a broad stakeholder base 

consisting of federal, state, local, tribal, territorial, international and private sector partners. The 

three committees are the NIEM Communications and Outreach Committee, the NIEM Technical 

Architecture Committee, and the NIEM Business Architecture Committee. Each committee is 

supported by one full time staff member in the PMO, and each committee provides essential 

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guidance to NIEM practitioners. 

First, the NIEM Communications and Outreach Committee is responsible for recommending 

approaches to increase the effectiveness of outreach to the stakeholder community, ensuring the 

NIEM training curriculum is effective and appropriate, and engaging stakeholders at various 

forums as appropriate. The NIEM Communications and Outreach Committee is currently chaired 

by the Director of the Alabama Criminal Justice Information Center. 

Next, the NIEM Technical Architecture Committee (NTAC) is responsible for defining the 

technical architecture that governs NIEM. The committee is led by two co-chairs from the DOJ 

CIO, and SEARCH, The National Consortium for Justice Information and Statistics. NTAC 

members are key stakeholders and representatives of engaged Communities ofInterest (COls). 

The member may represent operational practitioners and subject matter experts, key stakeholder 

agencies, domains, COls, and systems developers across all levels and branches of government, as 

well as solution providers. 

The primary mission ofNTAC is to define the technical and structural architecture associated with 

NIEM development and implementation. NTAC develops, implements, and maintains the 

technical specifications for the NIEM community. In addition, NTAC is responsible for ensuring 

robust and effective development of the NIEM core structure and complementary processes to 

support and enable users to efficiently develop, use, and reuse NIEM-conforman! model package 

description components. 

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Finally, the NIEM Business Architecture Committee guides the development, harmonization, 

evolution, and implementation ofthe NIEM core data components and operating processes from a 

business architecture perspective. It seeks to meet the operational needs of stakeholders and 

really drive NIEM value. Today, the NIEM Business Architecture Committee is co-chaired by 

representatives from the State of Missouri and NLETS, the International Justice and Public Safety 

Network, headquartered in the State of Arizona. The committee itself is composed of 

representatives from each of the 14-plus mission areas or "domains." It is through these domain 

representatives that data content is contributed, hannonized and evolved to meet common needs 

across all mission areas. Domain representatives are charged with ensuring the NIEM model is 

developed in a manner that supports information exchange within the community and encouraging 

reuse across communities. 

Each ofNIEM's domains is supported by a Community ofInterest that is representative of federal, 

state, local, tribal, territory, or private sector stakeholders. The NIEM Business Architecture 

Committee is also working to assess appropriate international representation into several ofthe 

domains in support of the Beyond the Border initiatives between the United States and 

Canada. Currently, NIEM serves the following domains: 

Biometrics; 

Children, Youth, and Family Services; 

• ChemicaliBiologicallRadiological/Nuclear; 

• Cyber Security; 

• Emergency Management; 

• Health; 

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• Human Services; 

• Immigration; 

Infrastruchlre Protection; 

• Intelligence; 

• International Trade; 

Justice; 

• Maritime; and 

• Screening. 

NIEM's business-oriented governance and implementation methodology both increases 

transparency and efficiency. In addition, since NIEM developers nationwide follow the same 

methodology, they can borrow from and reuse each other's work. This helps to reinforce the 

national collaborations that strengthen NIEM's governance structure. Because the Extensible 

Markup Language data model is composed of data components that cross sectors, fhnctions, and 

geographic boundaries, it enables users in one jurisdiction, organization, or agency to reuse and 

build upon solutions developed in a different one. This reusability of the data components reduces 

the design and development time needed to build new solutions. 

NIEM in Action 

The NIEM value proposition is being demonstrated every day across the country to address 

compelling social issues such as health, human, and social services; improve public safety; and 

strengthen homeland security. I would like to share a success story in New York City (NYC). 

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With an estimated population of 8.1 million, NYC is one of the most densely populated cities in 

the United States. ACCESS NYC, a free website and online tool developed by the NYC HHS 

"HHS-Connect project," allows users to apply for more than 35 city, state, and federal human 

service benefit programs, search for office locations, and create pre-populated application fom1s. 

An overarching theme ofthe NYC HHS-Connect project was to enable infonllation sharing among 

disparate NYC agencies. A challenge seen in many different HHS-Connect projects was 

ensuring that previous and potential point-to-point data transfers were implemented such that 

additional agencies could participate with minimal rework through use of existing data assets. 

NIEM made this possible by allowing the same information exchange to be used for the transfer 

between HHS and the u.s. Department of Education (ED), as well as between HHS and the NYC 

Department of Social Services, Human Resources Administration (HRA). 

This functionality is dependent on a data exchange between ACCESS NYC and a several external 

systems, specifically a third-party vendor the NYC Department of Education uses to process its 

School Meals paper applications. To satisfY the need for standards, consistency, and incremental 

gro"ih, the city adopted NIEM as a foundation of the NYC Health and Human Services solution. 

In order to make use of the strong foundation already provided by NIEM, several health and 

human service data components were created to extend NIEM to support their data exchange 

requirements. Today, the ACCESS NYC service is available online. 

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The most significant benefit of using NIEM for this project was the creation of "common" NIEM 

extensions that were used across all r..'YC HHS-Connect projects. For example, the data 

component extensions created for the School Meals infonnation exchange are also being used for 

the r..'YC HHS-Connect Worker Portal exchanges. In addition, a second request for School Meals 

data from the HRA was implemented using the School Meals exchange previously noted. 

Another related result of this information sharing initiative was the creation of an internal 

SharePoint site for discussing any NIEM experiences within NYC government. This enables 

1'-<'YC government agencies to collaborate and share information about the use ofNIEM and host 

lessons learned about NIEM applications from which other government agencies can benefit. 

On the federal level, the HHS's Administration for Children and Families (ACF) recently signed 

an agreement with the NIEM program to steward the development and maintenance of a Human 

Services domain to support the sharing and exchange ofNIEM conformant information across the 

Human Services community. Key stakeholders in this community include human service 

providers, both government and non-profits, at the state and local level, federal human service 

agencies both in and outside of the ACF, human service associations, universities, and court 

systems and judges. Some of the initial areas the Human Services domain is looking to develop 

exchange infonnation for include the following: 

Child Welfare to Homeless Services Exchange: A family involved with the child 

welfare system in a given jurisdiction enters the homeless service system. Upon entry, 

workers in both systems would be alerted and could maintain family services and insure 

the safety and well-being ofthe involved children. 

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Income Verification Exchange and Assistance Eligibility Exchange: A single mother 

loses her job which, she believes, makes her eligible for some local, state, and/or federal 

benefits. She doesn't know which. Rather than visiting each office individually 

in-person (food and nutrition services, housing assistance, cash assistance, heating/energy 

assistance, child care, etc.), she can now go to one central location and, through an income 

verification and other exchanges, receive real-time information about and apply for the 

benefits to which she and her family are eligible. 

This work will build on and complement the existing Children, Youth, and Family Services 

domain sponsored by the Department of Justice, which also seeks specifically to support the needs 

of those most vulnerable in our society - children and the families that support them. With the 

support ofDOJ BJA and DOJ Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP), the 

domain brings together the youth and family services, juvenile justice, and the courts communities 

to comprehensively address the needed services of children and their families, particularly those 

involved in the justice system. An example issue that will be addressed is: 

Criminal and Child Abuse to Child Care and Foster Pal'ent Licensure Agencies 

Exchange: Obtaining background checks for prospective foster parents is time 

consuming and, in many states, only yields criminal background or abuse and neglect data 

on that one state. There are similar issues with the hiring of staff to provide child care 

services in childcare centers or in private homes, An exchange that expedited the sharing of 

information between the providers and a national criminal and child abuse and neglect 

database would allow appropriate foster parents and childcare providers to be licensed and 

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would reduce the number of inappropriate licenses issued, better protecting children from 

potentially harmful situations. 

The NIEM Human Services domain, together with the Children, Youth, and Family Services 

domain, will improve both the use of limited resources and the services provided to children and 

families. It will support the human service community and the larger NIEM community by 

making data exchanges discoverable, understandable, accessible, and reusable across multiple 

partners. We anticipate that NIEM will continue to contribute to interoperability in these 

domains. 

NIEM is also being employed to combat the growing threat of prescription drug abuse. Most 

states now operate - or are preparing to operate - prescription monitoring programs that track 

prescription drug dispensing data across pharmacies, hospitals, and other dispensaries. However, 

the challenge lies in sharing this data across state lines with other state monitoring programs, 

leaving the door open to cross-border doctor shopping and illicit drug use. 

With the support of the BJA, and working with federal agencies such as HHS, Drug Enforcement 

Administration, and Office of National Drug Control Policy; the states; and private industry 

groups such as IJIS, an effort was begun to define a nationwide approach to sharing prescription 

drug data across state lines using a standardized, NIEM-hased approach. This approach was 

tested by state leaders in Kentucky (Kentucky All Schedule Electronic Reporting System, or 

KASPER) and Ohio (Ohio Automated R.x Reporting System, or OARRS), two states that share a 

border and have been hit especially hard by the problems associated with drug abuse. Interstate 

data sharing solutions being implemented today fully leverage NIEM as the standard for data 

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exchange. Using a common data format will assist states in avoiding costly rework or having to 

develop interfaces with multiple systems in order to share with other states. It is worth noting that 

this approach will not require any state to significantly modify its internal systems, processes, or 

procedures to participate in the information exchange. 

This effort represents a significant success for NIEM for a number of reasons, but perhaps most 

importantly; it connects practitioners across the health, regulatory, and law enforcement 

communities to address common challenges. NIEM enabled a standardized data model for 

sharing prescription dispensing data, but it also allowed for the implementation of specialized 

access control rules that account for each state's unique legislative and policy environment. 

Therefore, no protected health information is ever shared with anyone that does not have both the 

legal right and the business need to view that infonnation. Ensuring the privacy of citizens who 

are involved in the healthcare system was the top priority of the project, and it was made possible 

through the use of information sharing tools like NIEM. NIEM was also designed specifically to 

enable the type of cross-agency and cross-jurisdictional sharing that occurs frequently in the 

prescription monitoring environment; therefore, the success of this effort is seen by us all as a 

success for the NIEM program. 

It is important to note that the NIEM process does not inhibit or restrict compliance with 

appropriate Privacy, Civil Rights/Civil Liberties and Security policies, Laws and/or regulations. 

The NIEM process allows the flexibility for organizations to comply with their applicable laws, 

regulations and policies for the protection of data. The NIEM PMO has elevated the best 

practice used by many organizations in implementing NIEM which encourages a dialogue with 

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privacy and civil liberties oversight officials to define and identity specific data elements that 

should be afforded increased protection in the implementation process. 

Conclnsion 

In the difficult fiscal times facing government today, it is core systemic improvements that will 

save scarce financial resources, improve the effectiveness of government and, ultimately, make 

our country safer. NIEM is one of these rare systemic improvement opportunities. 

Today, April 19, 2012, NIEM is seven years old. On April 19, 2005, the CIOs ofDOJ and DHS 

signed a Memorandum of Understanding to establish the interagency program, bringing to fruition 

the work done at the state and local level of government to build a national model for sharing 

infornlation. Through years of maturing and improving, NIEM is now recognized and used by 

international partners such as Canada, Mexico, and member countries of the European Union. 

While it is tme that NIEM was developed in the United States for use by those in the United States, 

it is highly adaptable and scalable to programs of all size and scope. NIEM can and does enable a 

wide variety of partners to share information, irrespective of borders. 

I have a sincere passion for good government, and I am energized by how NIEM helps break down 

the institutional barriers standing in the way of it. On a more personal note, as a previous foster 

mom, I am particularly touched by the positive changes NIEM is making in the lives of the most 

vulnerable in our society - children and the families that support them. The information 

exchanges fostered by NIEM practitioners help streamline the administration of government 

services, increase transparency, and reduce waste and inefficiency with a proven, cost-effective 

13 
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f 

Chairman DAVIS. Thank you, Ms. Roy. We wish a happy birthday to NIEM as well. 

The Chair now recognizes Secretary Sheldon for his testimony. 


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23 

STATEMENT OF GEORGE SHELDON, ACTING ASSISTANT SECRETARY, ADMINISTRATION FOR CHILDREN AND FAMILIES, 

U.S. DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES 

Mr. SHELDON. Chairman Davis, Ranking Member Doggett, 

Members of the Subcommittee, thank you for the opportunity to 

testify about the development of standardized data exchanges and 

the use of technology to better target benefits and eliminate waste, 

fraud and abuse. 

This is my second opportunity to testify in front of this Committee. I testified two years ago as Secretary of the Department of 

Children and Families in Florida on this Committee’s efforts to provide expansion of the IV–E waiver concept. 

I thank you for the legislation that passed this year. 

I would like to acknowledge the leadership of Chairman Davis in 

this area. Like you, I believe that these efforts will lead to better 

targeting of benefits to eligible households, and at the same time, 

will reduce fraud, waste and abuse. 

Much work is occurring in this regard already. Clearly, much 

more needs to be done, and the hearing today furthers this critical 

conversation. 

I have a deep personal commitment to the effort you are promoting because I experienced firsthand as a state administrator 

what a difference improved data sharing can make for those on the 

front line delivering services. 

We all recognize the problem that we are trying to tackle. Valuable information which could support more accurate eligibility and 

benefit determinations, and more thoughtful case planning is siloed 

among multiple systems across related but not fully integrated programs. 

Even in cases in which organizations are allowed to share information, uncertainties about legal requirements, cultural differences, and misperceptions about privacy requirements too often 

stymie efforts to exchange information, even when the benefits are 

obvious. 

We face this situation in the State of Florida, for instance. 

The first point I would like to emphasize is the solution is not 

purely a technical one. The initial hurdle is to promote a new way 

of thinking, a cultural exchange that promotes the sharing of information. 

In Florida, we worked across eight state agencies to develop what 

we called a ‘‘Children and Youth Cabinet Information Sharing System.’’ 

Rather than develop the initiative from start, we piggy backed on 

the success of another initiative that the court system had in place 

for several years. 

The court system was a multi-agency data sharing system. In 

this manner, we not only benefitted from their technology platforms, but we were also able to incorporate the lessons that they 

had learned. 

I emphasize our use of the piggy back in Florida because we are 

taking that same approach at ACF. 

I will talk more about NIEM later, but as you know, we know 

a good idea when we see it. It does not make sense to pay to replicate systems we already own or have invested in heavily. 


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24 

I believe that the Committee’s initial emphasis on data exchange 

is wise. While I am not discounting the need for investment to support systems at the Federal, state and local levels, there are significant returns that we can realize by improving data sharing within 

the systems that we currently have. 

Implementing our system in Florida was a big step forward. It 

saved time, saved labor, reduced errors, and provided real time access to information. It allowed participating agencies to maintain 

the control and security that they wanted over their own data. 

This is another point I want to emphasize because it demonstrates that significant gains can be made without compromising 

privacy, which I know is a critical concern of everyone in this room. 

Most importantly, it supports better decision making because it 

provides much needed real time up to date data and data exchange 

capability on a vulnerable child or vulnerable family. 

My experience in Florida also confirms that improved data sharing can lead to lower improper payments. 

In Florida, we determined eligibility for TANF, SNAP, Medicaid 

and Refugee payments through an integrated automated process. 

While five years ago we had one of the worst food stamp error 

rates in the country, in the last three years of my tenure there, we 

achieved the lowest error rate in the SNAP program for three consecutive years, an unprecedented achievement. By 2010, the error 

rate was under one percent. 

The point I am making is that an appropriate use of technology 

in terms of sharing our data elements can really lead to an overall 

improvement of the system. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Sheldon follows:] 


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Statement of 

George H. Sheldon 

Acting Assistant Secretary 

Administration for Children and Families 

u.S. Department of Health and Human Services 

before the 

Subcommittee on Human Resources 

Committee on Ways and Means 

U.S. House of Representatives 

on 

April 19,2012 
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Chairman Davis, Ranking Member Doggett and members of the Subcommittee, thank you for 

the opportunity to testify before you this morning about the development of standardized data 

exchanges for Administration for Children and Families (ACF) programs and the use of 

technology to better target benefits and eliminate waste, fraud, and abuse. 

First, I would like to acknowledge the leadership demonstrated by Chairman Davis in this area 

already, by including provisions requiring the Secretary to develop data exchange standards and 

requiring them to be incorporated into data reporting in all gennane legislation under the 

Subcommittee's jurisdiction passed since last fall. Like you, I believe that these efforts will lead 

to better targeting of benefits to eligible households and will reduce fraud, waste and abuse. 

Reducing improper payments is a high priority for this Administration and one that Secretary 

Sebelius has led personally. I also believe that the efforts you are spearheading will reduce 

duplicative government efforts at the Federal, State and local levels and promote better services 

for clients. 

Much work is occurring in this regard already, and the hearing today furthers this critical 

conversation. Together, this standardization work will advance the process of allowing data 

exchange both within and across related programs to operate more efficiently. Hence, it will 

truly benefit some of the most vulnerable children in our society by promoting transparency, 

flexibility, and the ability for data gathered on our programs serving this population to be shared 

across the various infonnation technology platfonns established by Federal and State agencies 

and support improved data matching within States in this regard. 

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During my testimony, I will address ACF's efforts underway in support of implementing 

Chainnan Davis's data standards language enacted so far and outline other activities that the 

Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) is undertaking, such as our interoperability 

toolkit, to improve our data sharing and insure it is being done in a manner that best serves the 

interests of both States and tax payers during this time of significant resource constraints. ACF 

is working with the Office of Management and Budget to implement the data exchange 

standardization legislation that this Committee produced in a bi-partisan fashion that affects the 

Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) and child welfare programs. I am proud of 

the fact that we were able to work with your staff to develop legislation to produce workable 

solutions that we believe can be implemented quickly and efficiently. 

But there is more to be done and we are encouraged by your efforts to promote broader data 

sharing across all ACF programs within this Committee's jurisdiction. We are actively engaged 

in activities to promote these efforts within the authorities that we currently have and are fully 

supportive of your efforts to expand the scope of the authority to other HHS-administered 

programs. 

I would also call attention to the fact that the recently enacted legislation does not expand data 

collections or require States to report new information. What we have been tasked with is doing 

a better job of administering our programs within the existing requirements to collect and report 

data. 

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I have a deep personal commitment to the efforts you are promoting because I have experienced 

firsthand as a State administrator what a difference improved data sharing can make for those in 

the front line of delivering services to at-risk children and families. 

We all recognize the problem that we are trying to tackle. Valuable information which could 

support more accurate eligibility and benefit determinations and more thoughtful case planning i~ 

siloed among multiple systems across related, but not fully integrated programs. Even in cases 

in which organizations are allowed to share infonnation, uncertainties about legal requirements, 

cultural differences and misperceptions about privacy requirements too often stymie efforts to 

exchange information even when the benefits are obvious. We faced this situation in the State of 

Florida - and the first point that I would emphasize is that the solution is not purely a technical 

one - that the initial hurdle is to promote a new way of thinking - a culture change that promotes 

the sharing of information. 

I feel that I am preaching to the choir here. We all have our silos, whether they be based on how 

programs are authorized, bureaucracies are organized or committee jurisdictions are established. 

It's only when we can get over that initial cultural hurdle that we can harness the power of 

technology to support the work that we are trying to do. I appreciate your efforts to date to 

overcome these silos and support improved coordination. 

Florida Childl'en and Youth Cabinet Information Shal'ing System 

As you may know, prior to joining the HHS, I worked on these issues in Florida, where we 

worked across eight State agencies to develop what we called a Children and Youth Cabinet 

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Information Sharing System (CYCISS). And rather than develop an initiative from scratch, we 

piggybacked on the success of an existing initiative - Florida's Office of State Courts 

Administrator (OSCA), Judicial Inquiry System (JIS). The court system was a multiagency data 

sharing system that had been operating for several years. In this manner we not only benefited 

from their technology platfonns, but we also were able to incorporate the lessons they had 

learned. 

I emphasize our use of the piggy back in Florida because we are taking the same approach at 

ACF. At the same time that we are making the case that we cannot afford the waste of having 

parallel organizations perform the same or conflicting functions, it does not make sense to pay to 

replicate systems we already own or have invested in heavily. I believe that the Committee's 

initial emphasis on data exchange is wise. While I am not discounting the need for investment to 

support systems at the Federal, State and local levels, there are significant returns that we can 

realize by improved data sharing within the systems we currently have. 

Implementing CYCISS was a big step forward. It saves time and labor, reduces errors and 

provides real-time access to information. And it allows the participating agencies to maintain 

control and security over their data. This is another point that I want to emphasize because it 

demonstrates that significant gains can be made without compromising privacy, which I know is 

a critical concern to everyone in this room. And most importantly, it supports better decisionmaking because it provides much needed real-time, up-to-date data and data exchange capability 

on a vulnerable child or family. 

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My experience in Florida also confinns that improved data sharing can lead to lower improper 

payments. In Florida, we detennined eligibility for TANF, Supplemental Nutrition Assistance 

Program (SNAP), Medicaid and Refugee payments through an integrated, automated process. 

Florida's system provides continuous access through a web application and relies extensively on 

electronic interfaces with a wide variety of data systems to verify eligibility information. In 

2007, the initiative was recognized by the Kelmedy School of Govemment at Harvard as a 

winner of the Ash Institute award for innovation in government. In my last three years in 

Florida, we achieved the lowest error rate in the SNAP program for three successive years - an 

unprecedented achievement. By 2010, the error rate was under 1 percent. Because the same 

eligibility process is used for T ANF, Medicaid and Refugee payments, these error reduction 

processes are likely to improve the integrity of these programs also. 

ACF Efforts Underway To Support Implementation of the Data Standards Legislation 

As the lead for the human services programs within HHS, ACF has a number of initiatives 

underway that will lead to greater program integration across the spectmm of human services. 

The challenge before us is to find new ways to serve our clients - ways that reduce both the 

burdens of program administration at all levels of govemment, and the fmstrations that 

bureaucracy can often entail for the client. I know it sounds shopworn and cliche, but I believe 

we really can find ways to do the business of delivering human services to America's families 

and children, better, faster, and more efficiently. I am pleased to say that the goals of the 

Committee dovetail with efforts we have made a priority for ACF. 

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Systems interoperability addresses some of the problem by placing clients at the center of the 

services we provide, reducing technical and bureaucratic barriers between programs that make it 

hard for people to get the services they need. Fortunately, ACF has much of what it takes to 

make our systems more interoperable. We have state-of-the-art technology and experts who 

know how to unleash its potential, and we have an Administration that is committed to the effort. 

We are also building upon the strong working relationships we have with other agencies that also 

provide services to the populations we serve. 

ACF has established an Interoperability Project Management Office. It is tasked to manage 

the day-to-day communications with our numerous stakeholders at the Federal, State and local 

levels, not to mention with the private sector and advocates; as well as handle all project 

coordination, including improving our interagency collaboration and cooperation. 

ACF plans to establish an Interoperability Steering Committee. The committee will consist of 

stakeholders from within and outside of ACF to provide consultation, counsel, critical review 

and analysis, and provide support for current and future interoperability efforts. Membership 

would include a combination of Federal, State, and local representatives. 

We are also developing a National Information Exchange Model (NIEl\I) that serves as a 

clearinghouse for commonly used human services terminology and establishes a process to 

identify and share essential infOlmation. The NIEM framework will also provide tools as well as 

training and technical assistance, and will guide our efforts at implementing information 

exchange services across the landscape of human services. 

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We are pleased to note that the Human Services Domain was recently officially recognized and 

officially established under NIEM. In the next few months, ACF will be posting planning 

documents on the NIEM website for review and comment. ACF will also establish and operate a 

NIEM sub-group to provide coordination with the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid 

Services (CMS), including its Center for Consumer Information and Insurance 

Oversight (CClIO), as ACF is committed to supporting these agencies as they implement their 

own Health Services Domain under NIEM. 

We are fi.l11ding the initial creation of a National Human Services Interoperability 

Architecture (NHSIA) that will serve as the technical framework of interoperability. The 

architecture is derived from a number of existing, successful enterprise architecture models, 

including the Federal Enterprise Architecture or FEA. It is envisioned as a framework that can 

support common eligibility and information sharing across programs, agencies, and departments; 

improve the efficiency and effectiveness of service delivery across our programs; support great 

program integrity through enhanced identification and prevention of waste and fraud; and in 

doing so, deliver better outcomes for children and families. 

ACF periodically releases a compendium of interoperability documents (Interoperability 

Toolkit) designed to help State human services agencies connect with their health counterparts 

and coordinate efforts to develop modernized and interoperable systems. A revised version is 

being written now that will include a series of implementation scenarios; narratives that \vill 

describe for States the opporhmities, steps, timeframes, and coordination needed to improve 

system interoperability and integration across health and human services programs and assist 

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States in leveraging the system improvements to implement the Affordable Care Act, without 

stalling or jeopardizing these system development efforts. This new toolkit should be published 

before summer. 

Many of the efforts I've already mentioned, from establishing a Project Management Office to 

coordinate the participation of numerous ACF programs, to identitying potential members of an 

Interoperability Steering Committee, entail stakeholders that can contribute to OMB's working 

group on data exchange standards; which will convene and continue these efforts over the 

coming year. 

These efforts already underway will help us as we work with the Office of Management and 

Budget COMB) to implement the recently enacted data exchange standardization provisions. We 

plan to use OMB's working group and the rulemaking process to conduct far-reaching and 

inclusive consultation with affected stakeholders. The TANF extension requires that we issue a 

notice of proposed rulemaking within 12 months of enactment and we are working to meet that 

deadline. And while the requirements are only applicable to TANF and Child Welfare Services 

under title IV-B of the Social Security Act, we will conduct our consultations with an eye to how 

we can implement in a way that would best encourage data exchange with programs that are not 

now subject to the provisions. That will facilitate an easier transition if the Committee is 

successful in enacting legislation that would apply to a filiI array of programs administered by 

ACF. You can count on my support for those efforts. 

9 
34 

f 

Chairman DAVIS. Thank you very much, Mr. Secretary. I would 

like to move on to questions now. 

What we are talking about today is not about new data but about 

using existing data more efficiently and effectively. 


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35 

Secretary Sheldon, nearly every one of your programs provides a 

congressional or annual report, most of which come to this Committee. 

I have two here, which I will not enter into the record out of 

mercy for the transcriptionist, but we have some examples I would 

like to show you. 

We have pages up on the screen right now, quite detailed information, such as how many beneficiaries there are and how dollars 

are being spent. 

However, beyond those broad facts, the data is not usable in 

helping to improve how the programs perform. Variance metrics, 

understanding the quality of work, the ability to drill down inside 

of those. 

For example, what I would like to share with you and members 

on the Subcommittee from these pages is a recent Child Welfare 

Annual Report on States’ Planned and Actual Expenditures, which 

was requested by Congress. 

I see that many of the same forms are used throughout, but one 

thing is how overall the data lacks consistency. 

The pages also appear to be PDF copies of the original forms submitted in paper form by states, making many of them illegible, 

frankly. 

What does your agency do with this information, and do you 

think this sort of report is useful for your staff, congressional staff, 

or outside experts? 

I want to qualify my remark. I am not doing this to put you on 

the spot so much, but as we have discussed, we have this common 

problem we are trying to work around, and I would like to hear 

your thoughts on steps to fix this. 

Mr. SHELDON. I appreciate this. The report is based on congressional direction of how we should be sharing this information. I do 

think this data is important not only to us but I think it is important to the field. 

Clearly, as you have identified, these PDF files are not very user 

friendly. 

Bryan Samuels, who is our Commissioner for the Administration 

for Children, Youth and Family, actually identified this difficulty 

about a year ago, and began working with the staff to try to get 

a more uniform system of reporting from the states. 

In addition to that, it is my view that at some point, assuming 

resources are available, we need to be moving from hardcopy reporting that can only be shared in a PDF format to a much more 

user friendly, state friendly, and services friendly reporting system. 

It is something that has been identified, and I appreciate you 

bringing it to my personal attention, but I would report that Commissioner Samuels has identified this and is attempting to work on 

it. 

Chairman DAVIS. I believe the purpose of the report is to understand state variations in planned and actual expenditures on child 

welfare so policymakers can know what works better to protect 

children. That is an important goal. 

How do you expect this and other reports will change with the 

enactment of our data standards provision that was signed into 

law? 


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36 

Mr. SHELDON. I think the data standardization exchanges are 

an excellent opportunity to begin addressing some of these issues. 

As I indicated in my prepared comments, a lot of progress has been 

made, but there is still a lot more that needs to be done, and I 

think this is a good example. 

With respect to NIEM, we have established an interoperability 

project management team headed by Joe Bodmer, who is behind 

me. I am very optimistic about the direction they are taking and 

the impact it could have on these kinds of reports. 

Chairman DAVIS. Thank you, Mr. Secretary. Ms. Roy, NIEM is 

not a standard but a way of setting parameters for data exchange 

so information can flow more freely. 

I recognize this pushes beyond NIEM, but can you tell us more 

about the burden on the agencies and departments, especially 

small local governments, to transition to the structures developed 

by NIEM, both in the short and long term? 

Feel free to use examples outside of human services, if that 

would be helpful in answering the question. 

Ms. ROY. Thank you for asking that question, Chairman. We believe we hold true in the NIEM program. One basic foundational 

tenet is that we provide technologies, tools and support to reduce 

the burden for our state and local adopters to make sure the technology we employ is consumable given the reduced budgets and restraints they have at the state and local level. 

As an example, in this PDF, it would be as simple as putting 

XML behind it embedded within this PDF that would make this a 

useful document. That would provide a very low burden to employing this type of solution. 

The Recovery Act included recipient reporting from the state and 

locals in the form of an Excel spreadsheet, and in the back of that 

Excel spreadsheet, XML data that could be used to exchange information and to add up and total up the dollars there. 

I don’t believe that everything that we do is a high cost IT implementation within the state and locals. We have really reduced that 

burden by providing tools and ways for them to use XML in a manner that is at a reduced cost and a quicker time for implementation. 

Chairman DAVIS. Very good. Thank you very much. With that, 

I would like to yield to Mr. Doggett, the Ranking Member of the 

Subcommittee, for five minutes. 

Mr. DOGGETT. Ms. Roy, NIEM as it currently exists, I know, 

has been instrumental in facilitating the exchange of data. What 

are some examples, additional examples, of how it is currently 

being used in the Federal Government? 

Ms. ROY. NIEM has realized a significant increase in adoption 

in the Federal Government. In the Department of Homeland Security, where my day job is, I can provide some examples. 

NIEM is being applied in the Disaster Assistance Improvement 

Program from FEMA to harmonize the 60 forms that one could 

apply for in a disaster situation. 

Amazingly enough, 80 percent of the data on those 60 forms is 

the same, and yet, we make our citizens fill out those forms again 

and again. 


kgrant on DSKB33CYQ1 with HEARINGS
37 

The FEMA Disaster Assistance Program is aimed at harmonizing 

that and allowing citizens to fill out most of that information once 

and pass that information to the agencies to ensure that those 

forms are pre-populated. To me, that’s good Government. 

The Citizenship and Immigration Services in the Department of 

Homeland Security has applied the use of NIEM in the Everification and self check programs, allowing faster citizen services in a critical service that we provide. 

Outside of the Department of Homeland Security, the Department of Justice has a strong program around index and law enforcement information sharing. 

True banner best practice child from the beginning of the NIEM 

program. 

There are really great cases at the state level based on some at 

the Federal level. In Colorado, New York City, and Massachusetts, 

NIEM is being applied in child and family services. The really 

great part about NIEM is that people can use it. It is free to use. 

I never have to know about it. 

I often do not know about it until I hear the good news such as 

the New York Times article around New York City’s HHS-Connect 

successes. They were able to provide streamlined citizen services to 

their citizens. 

As an example, an 18-year-old mother of a one-year-old son who 

arrived in the city’s homeless intake center. 

She had been removed from her own mother’s house by ACF in 

September because of neglect. By typing her name into this new 

interface, the case worker was able to within minutes find her 

birth certificate, her baptism certificate, and her mother’s driver’s 

license to help her document her identity and housing history, 

which homeless services requires. 

That took about 45 minutes out of a six-hour intake process because of the work New York City’s HHS-Connect has done to bring 

together their information using the NIEM standard. Again, we did 

not know they were doing it. We had no anticipation that NIEM 

would be used in human services when we started the program. 

These are all great sorts of use cases around community adoption 

and the community involvement in the use of a program originally 

started for law enforcement and homeland security information. 

Mr. DOGGETT. Thanks so much to both of you for your leadership. We have a vote under way. I will hold the rest of mine. Thank 

you. 

Chairman DAVIS. I thank the gentleman. I apologize to our 

guests and to our witnesses that a vote intruded upon the proceedings right now. We will be back in 20 minutes. 

I would ask Ms. Roy and Secretary Sheldon if you would please 

consider remaining. I believe some of our members do have some 

questions for you before we move on to our second panel of witnesses. 

Appreciate you being here today very much, and very excited 

about the progress we have made over the last year and a half 

working together. 

With that, the Subcommittee stands in recess for 20 minutes. 

[Recess.] 


kgrant on DSKB33CYQ1 with HEARINGS
38 

Chairman DAVIS. The hearing is back in session. We will continue with our questioning of our first panel. I would like to recognize Dr. Boustany from Louisiana for five minutes. 

Mr. BOUSTANY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. This is a very important hearing, and I know you have had a long interest in this 

interagency cooperation and how we can use data to drive this. 

Ms. Roy, you have been involved in all this, trying to push this 

from the inside. Why is it so hard to reach consensus on standardization? Please describe some of the difficulties you have encountered going forward with all this. 

Ms. ROY. Thank you, Congressman, for asking me that. If it 

were easy, I believe it would not be so hard, such a big push to 

get people to adopt. 

Most of the objections we get are related to education and the 

time to adopt something new. A lot of misperceptions; it is hard to 

use or hard to adopt another standard. 

We believe when we have a cogent conversation around the reuse potential, those conversations get easier to have. Sometimes we 

have the objections of not invented here, it is not my XML standard, as an example, so it is hard for me to sort of diverge and listen 

openly to a better way of doing business. 

For the most part, it has been about outreach and making sure 

we have enough outreach activities out there to apply what we 

think are the good aspects of a program like NIEM out there to 

3,000 counties, 50 states. As an example, in Homeland Security, 

18,000 police departments. It is a pretty big country, a lot of people 

to get to. 

Mr. BOUSTANY. Magnitude of order. 

Secretary Sheldon, do you want to comment on that? 

Mr. SHELDON. Yes. I saw this at the state level, where the 

agency that I ran, mental health, substance abuse, TANF, child 

welfare, domestic violence, and everyone is comfortable with their 

little silo; they are safe in it. 

I think as I indicated in my testimony, we know how to do the 

technology, quite frankly, but it is the culture of sharing that has 

to happen. 

I have been meeting with several state commissioners. I think 

there is a growing realization at the state level, as there are declining resources, that there is a benefit to data exchange standardization. 

I met, for instance, with the Secretary of the Department in Virginia just last week. They are doing some extremely innovative 

things in Virginia, and I think other states are too, but Virginia 

may very well be one of those states that could be an example to 

other states. 

What they are attempting to do is not just add standardization 

but a growing sharing of information across lines, and ultimately, 

I think this is going to be where we are headed when we get to 

the point where we are not just dealing with the human services 

domain, but we are also dealing with the health domain, as well 

as with the education domain. Those three are so intricately linked. 

Mr. BOUSTANY. Right. It is interesting. There is an irony I 

have experienced in my time in Congress. Late in 2005, I went to 

Iraq. On the way back, I stopped in Landstuhl. I was talking to the 


kgrant on DSKB33CYQ1 with HEARINGS
39 

chief medical officer at the hospital in Landstuhl where our wounded warriors were evacuated. 

What was interesting was the fact that we had good data for battlefield to Landstuhl, but when our guys left the Department of Defense and went over to the Veterans Administration, which consisted of a whole different database, there was a lack of communication and lost information, and a lot of frustration on the part 

of our veterans. 

I returned in 2008 to see what changes were made, and basically, 

nothing had changed. 

The irony is here we are, an Administration driven to implement 

health information technology to improve quality and collaboration, 

integration of health, and yet our own departments cannot seem to 

get it together. 

I share Chairman Davis’ intense interest in this issue because as 

he said in his opening statement, with our budgetary constraints 

and all the other things we are dealing with, this should be a nobrainer, albeit a very difficult task, given the magnitude and cultural issues. 

That is why I asked the question, to try to drill down a little further into what specific problems you are encountering going forward on all this. 

If you could continue to work with us on these things and help 

us understand where the road blocks are, what specifically is occurring. We can pass legislation, but actual implementation and getting this right is a whole different story. 

With that, Mr. Chairman, I would yield back. Thank you. 

Chairman DAVIS. I appreciate your comments. The Chair recognizes Mr. Reed for five minutes. 

Mr. REED. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you to our witnesses for testifying today. 

Ms. Roy, I am going to direct a lot of my conversation to you, as 

I do not think we have ever had a member of the Homeland Security team come here and testify before on human resources issues 

and others. 

I really want to delve into the concerns that NIEM potentially 

is out there for purposes of intelligence gathering. 

Can you dispel for me any of the issues that people are expressing, that this is confidential information data that could potentially 

be exploited, or concerns about privacy and issues like that? 

Ms. ROY. Congressman Reed, those are very good questions. 

Thank you very much for asking them. 

NIEM is just a format for data as it moves. It does not imply 

that you are moving it anywhere. It does provide a common vocabulary for someone who wants to send data to someone who wants 

to receive it or more appropriately, network effect of multiple people who want to receive it in a way they can understand it. 

Early, when the HHS started to see the value of NIEM and have 

the conversations, I have read some sort of blogs out there that the 

CIA would get your health records, sort of had to chuckle on that 

one. 

NIEM does not move the data. NIEM provides the format for 

which the data moves. 


kgrant on DSKB33CYQ1 with HEARINGS
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In combination with NIEM are the implementations within a 

Federal, state, local or private sector agency who put in place security, privacy, and other aspects of the IT system that protects the 

data. 

NIEM is not the data itself. It is just the format for which we 

agree upon sharing the data. 

The format had applicability across more than intelligence domains. It is the homeland security, the emergency management, 

the justice, education, transportation. 

There are a lot of domains where Donna Roy is Donna Roy, and 

the description of Donna Roy as a person, I have a name, date of 

birth, sex, all of those things are consistently the same across multiple domains across our Government, that is where NIEM provides 

a significant amount of value. 

Mr. REED. Excellent. Mr. Sheldon, do you have anything to offer 

from HHS’ point of view? 

Mr. SHELDON. I think the agencies are still going to be able to 

control their confidentiality requirements. 

When we moved in this direction in Florida, we had what we 

called three joint application design sessions. 

The first two sessions were with programs and addressed what 

kind of information should be put up, what would be useful, and 

what would be useful across agency lines. 

Then in our third session, we brought in the general counsels of 

those agencies to address privacy issues. 

Many of the ideas that were brought up during the programmatic piece of those design sessions were included in our ultimate application. 

There were a few that did not make it because of confidentiality 

concerns, and then we developed memorandums of understanding 

between all the agencies who were participating. 

There was a memorandum of understanding between the sender 

agency and the receiver agency. 

I think as we move forward, we are going to have to do that kind 

of collaboration in order to break down some of these walls. 

I also think there is a lot of misconception about confidentiality 

requirements and what is confidential. For instance, if I have a 

child who is in the child welfare system, and that child is in care, 

it would be very helpful to the state child welfare agency to know 

how that child is doing in school. 

Yet, that information, under the current FERPA statutes, is not 

shareable. 

I think with respect to data sharing you need a process where 

access is limited to those who have a need to know. Obviously, 

when you deal with a child in the child welfare system, the extent 

to which you can interface with what is happening with that child 

in the education system, is better for the child. 

Those are the kinds of things I think on an ongoing basis we are 

going to have to work through. 

I am very confident from a technology standpoint we can do this. 

I do think we have to break down a lot of misconceptions that 

exist. 


kgrant on DSKB33CYQ1 with HEARINGS
41 

Mr. REED. I would agree with that sentiment, the misconception 

about the ulterior motives potentially that are out there floating in 

the blogosphere and everywhere else. 

I appreciate that and I look forward to working with you to accomplish that. 

Mr. SHELDON. If I might, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. REED. Please. 

Mr. SHELDON. We had a taskforce in Florida after the Virginia 

Tech killings, and what we found is that the folks in the colleges 

and mental health arena were not communicating with the people 

who had a need to know if in fact there were some dangers. 

That is the kind of ongoing dialogue, I think, institutions are 

going to have to have in order to not just make sure that we are 

covering fraud and abuse but we are also protecting individuals at 

the same time. 

Mr. REED. I appreciate that. My time has expired. Mr. Chairman, I yield back. 

Chairman DAVIS. I thank the gentleman. The Chair recognizes 

the gentleman from North Dakota, Mr. Berg. 

Mr. BERG. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you for being here. 

I apologize for the disruption with the voting. It is one of those 

days probably more typical than not. 

As you know, this Committee has been working a lot on data 

standardization and the programs within our jurisdiction, child 

welfare, TANF, and the Unemployment Insurance. 

As you heard Ranking Member Doggett and others, we co-sponsored a bill to do the same thing in child enforcement, and really 

on a global basis. 

My question for Ms. Roy is on the bigger picture, as you look 

around all the things that Government is involved with, are there 

other agencies and programs that are looking at standardization 

and doing some things that kind of pop out as other examples? 

Ms. ROY. We are in the business of being an available-to-use 

public service. I wish I knew all the good news around the communities and the agencies that were adopting NIEM. 

Again, as I stated, I find out when I hear it in the press or someone bragging about a good news story. 

That being said, we are seeing a lot of positive movement in the 

human services arena in Colorado, New York City, in Massachusetts. There is an exponential growth factor every time one of those 

states shares its best practices. 

It is a little bit of a wild card with this community driven program, but they foster conversations with a state near them or with 

someone else that is interested. 

We will see this network impact of a community that is very, 

very involved. 

At the Federal level, as I mentioned, we have almost all of the 

Federal agencies doing something with NIEM. In particular, new 

domains, and around education, around transportation, are encouraging, because they have an impact on this cross community information exchange. 

A child is a child. He goes to school. The child might be part of 

a welfare program and might get school lunch programs. 


kgrant on DSKB33CYQ1 with HEARINGS
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NIEM was built to actually sustain that cross business transactional support for data exchange. 

Mr. BERG. Thank you. Just one quick follow up. How do we encourage agencies to move in this direction? Is there something we 

can do? 

If you said there was one thing that could be done by Congress 

to encourage that, what would it be? Other than more money. 

Ms. ROY. We appreciate support in getting the word out, that 

NIEM is a tool for your constituents to use for better IT connections, for better sharing. 

We appreciate increased outreach on this. We are getting great 

support from the Federal CIO Council for the Federal agencies. 

Every time we see a Federal agency adopt, we see a ripple effect 

in the state and local agencies that also exchange information with 

the Feds. 

I would say continued outreach and understanding that this is 

a valuable program that can help significantly increase mission 

performance. 

Mr. BERG. Thank you. I will yield back. 

Chairman DAVIS. I thank the gentleman. I would like to welcome now a distinguished member and long-serving member of the 

Ways and Means Committee, the Chairman of the Subcommittee 

on Health, the gentleman from California, Mr. Herger. Thank you 

for joining us today. 

Mr. HERGER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate an opportunity to sit on the panel. 

Mr. Sheldon, today there has been a lot of discussion about the 

positive of information sharing, but I want to bring it back to an 

issue that is easily overlooked and potentially more important. 

I want to discuss the safeguards that should be in place to ensure that the personal data of program beneficiaries is kept secret. 

As you may have heard from recent news reports, California’s 

Department of Child Support Services lost computerized storage 

devices that were being transported as part of a disaster recovery 

task last month. 

These devices held the personal data of 800,000 parents, guardians, and children, compromising their names, addresses, driver license numbers, Social Security numbers, health insurance, and employer information. 

The news reports of the incident are extremely troubling. We do 

not have much information other than the devices went missing 

somewhere between Colorado and California. 

I want to make sure this security lapse is taken seriously by the 

Government agencies involved as by the families whose personal 

information has been lost. 

I would like to know what safeguards states operating child support enforcement and other Federal programs are required to have 

in place to protect personal data. 

Has HHS looked into the incident in California, and if so, did 

California’s Department of Child Services violate any of the safeguards that should have been in place? 

Mr. SHELDON. Congressman, I could not agree with you more. 

Our child support enforcement efforts nationally have had a 15 

year unblemished record in terms of protecting data. 


kgrant on DSKB33CYQ1 with HEARINGS
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We do take what happened in California extremely seriously. We 

immediately reached out to California when it came to our attention to determine, number one, the nature of the loss, what information was lost, and the level of data exposure. 

We are still working with them. I have asked that we go back 

and look at our safeguarding protocols we are requiring of states. 

I have been assured there are a lot of protocols in place in terms 

of making sure that states comply with confidentiality. 

I want to make sure we are doing everything we can in this area. 

We will continue to work with California. 

The information that we have gotten back to date indicates, I 

think, there were five canisters lost. One of those has been regained. We requested that the state immediately identify the individuals, notify those individuals of the potential breach, and that 

is ongoing as we speak, I believe. 

Mr. HERGER. Mr. Sheldon, could you tell me, what does your 

agency plan to do going forward to prevent this type of lapse from 

happening again? 

Mr. SHELDON. Well, the first thing that we are doing is we are 

working to make sure that states are meeting the current safeguard requirements that we have in place. 

We currently are doing routine monitoring of states. We will increase that monitoring on an ongoing basis. 

I think quite frankly we also are identifying through a lot of 

those routine efforts if there is any unauthorized use of information. 

We are employing technical assistance teams to work with states 

in this arena. 

I share your concern because I think this was a serious breach, 

and we are trying to double our efforts in working with states and 

holding them accountable. 

Mr. HERGER. Mr. Sheldon, I appreciate your taking this seriously. Again, it is difficult to comprehend how something like this 

could happen. 

Mr. SHELDON. This was, as I understand it, an emergency disaster exercise. To have this happen on that kind of exercise is in 

itself problematic. The purpose of those exercises is just the opposite. 

I would point out the state did have back-up information, so 

there was no loss on the part of the state. Exposing confidential information of individual citizens, however, I do think, is cause for 

serious alarm. 

Mr. HERGER. Well, again, I appreciate that. It is very important, as you can understand, number one, to understand how this 

could happen in basically a mock up trial. Imagine what would 

happen if there was an actual emergency. 

I think you can understand how it is very important that we 

check and double check and make sure this does not happen again. 

Again, I thank you very much. 

Mr. SHELDON. Mr. Chairman, what I would like to do is get 

back with you as we proceed so you know exactly what steps we 

are taking as it relates to this particular breach. 

Mr. HERGER. I would appreciate you doing that. Thank you 

very much. Mr. Chairman, thank you. 


kgrant on DSKB33CYQ1 with HEARINGS
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Chairman DAVIS. I thank the gentleman. I want to thank both 

of our witnesses, Ms. Roy and Secretary Sheldon from the Administration, in helping us understand the issue further. 

If members have additional questions, they will submit them to 

you in writing, and we would appreciate it if you would also give 

us a copy of that so we can submit it into the official record. 

I want to thank you again. We look forward to continuing to 

work with you on improving data standardization to reduce costs 

and improve performance in the Government. 

With that, this concludes the first panel of the hearing. I would 

appreciate it if the second panel would come forward. Thank you 

very much. 

Now we will go ahead and begin the second panel. I appreciate 

our witnesses being here today. 

We will hear from Mr. Robert Doar, Commissioner, Human Resources Administration for New York City. 

Ginger Zielinskie, Executive Director of Benefits Data Trust. 

Mr. Darryl McDonald, Executive Vice President of Teradata Corporation. 

Campbell Pryde, President and Chief Executive Officer of XBRL 

US. 

Appreciate you taking time out of your schedules to join us here 

in Washington. 

Mr. Doar, would you please proceed with your testimony? 

STATEMENT OF ROBERT DOAR, COMMISSIONER, HUMAN 

RESOURCES ADMINISTRATION, NEW YORK CITY 

Mr. DOAR. Thank you and good morning, Chairman Davis, 

Ranking Member Doggett, and Members of the Committee. 

I am Robert Doar, head of New York City’s largest social service 

agency, HRA. 

Due to the structure set up in New York State, I help to manage 

over $39 billion in resources in an array of programs, including 

TANF, SNAP, Medicaid, and child support enforcement. 

Mayor Michael Bloomberg has made it a top priority to break 

down silos between city agencies, so that we can improve the quality of services to the millions of participants in our programs, and 

to properly administer and protect city, state and Federal tax dollars. 

He drew from his work in the private sector and saw we needed 

a better computer system to manage eight health and human service agencies with 80 different case management systems serving 

more than three million recipients and reporting to different state 

and Federal oversight agencies. 

In 2008, we embarked upon HHS-Connect to basically create a 

system to share information across multiple services, multiple 

agencies, so we could better serve our citizens and clients. 

A key was the strong leadership provided by the Deputy Mayor 

for Health and Human Services, Linda Gibbs, and the emphasis 

placed on this program on all commissioners in human services and 

city government. 

Presently, there are two major functions of HHS-Connect that 

are underway. Client access to information about benefits and servVerDate Mar 15 2010 19:17 Oct 29, 2013 Jkt 074807 PO 00000 Frm 00048 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 I:\WAYS\OUT\74807.XXX 74807

kgrant on DSKB33CYQ1 with HEARINGS
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ices and worker access to better data and realistic view of the client. 

ACCESS NYC is the client portal. It is a screening tool to self 

screen for more than 30 city, state and Federal human services 

benefit programs. 

Applicants can also apply on line for SNAP, school meals, and 

senior citizens and disabled rental increase exemption programs. 

Recently, Medicaid renewals were added to the site, and since we 

began, 100,000 SNAP applications have been submitted on line. 

To better assist clients on the worker side, we created Worker 

Connect, to share information among agency workers. It is a secure 

read only web based application that allows select city workers to 

access a limited set of information from multiple data sources 

through one point of entry. 

The basic technical elements are a common client index and a 

document manager. The common client index is the initial process 

to link the client’s identity within any of the participating agencies. 

The identifier is used to data mine details such as benefit information, case composition, and employment history, and display 

them to workers. 

The document management is simple but has been very useful 

across agencies, an electronic repository of documents submitted by 

HRA clients when they apply for our benefit programs. 

On the program side, the key benefit of HHS-Connect is how the 

information can be used. In our child welfare agency, they regularly use Worker Connect. Child welfare workers use it to quickly 

identify and locate children and guardians they have difficult finding but are known to other city agencies. 

Often times, the reports child welfare workers receive from a 

central registry are missing critical identifying information, especially when they are called in by anonymous sources. 

Worker Connect has alerted staff to the identity of household 

members and the existence of another parent or other children who 

may be at risk. 

It has also been useful to our homeless agencies’ intake facilities, 

where families showing up at the facility often do not have easy access to much of their documentation. 

My agency also uses Worker Connect as an additional tool to 

identify fraud, abuse, and improper payments within public assistance programs. 

We use it for eligibility verification, to quickly and accurately 

identify inconsistencies, particularly unreported income, between 

information provided to us on applications and that which has been 

submitted to other agencies. 

In the future, we hope to use it to help identify patterns of potential fraud and abuse within the public assistance programs we administer. 

I need to be clear that information sharing was not undertaken 

lightly. There is an over arching requirement that access to information is only granted in compliance with all applicable laws and 

regulations. 

We strictly adhere to Federal, state and local laws governing the 

protection and use of confidential records maintained by our social 

services agencies. 


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I believe there is definitely a role for the Federal Government to 

help in this area so that every other state or city trying to identify 

what data can be shared is not overwhelmed with legal analysis 

and forced to recreate the wheel time and again. 

I also believe that we need to be careful to recognize that the 

sharing of data is not synonymous with the sharing of eligibility 

rules. 

Although we strive to make sure that low income individuals and 

families have appropriate access to benefits for which they are eligible, we need to be mindful of unintended consequences. 

Every program has different standards for how to consider resources and income and ultimately determine eligibility, and many 

of these differences are appropriate given the different goals of the 

programs. Therefore, discussions as to what extent programs that 

share common data or clients should share the same eligibility 

standards needs to be approached strategically. 

I thank the Committee and the Chairman for all of your work 

on addressing this important issue, and for moving this important 

agenda forward. 

Thank you. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Doar follows:] 


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kgrant on DSKB33CYQ1 with HEARINGS74807.025.eps

NYC; 

Human Resources 

Administration 

Department of 

Social Services 

TESTIMONY 

Robert Doar, Commissioner 

New York City Human Resources AdministrationlDepartment of Social Services 

Hearing on the Use o/Technology to Better Target Benefits 

and Eliminate Waste, Fraud, and Abuse 

House of Representatives Ways and ]\!Ieans Subcommittee on Human Resources 

United States Congress 

April 19, 2012 
48 


kgrant on DSKB33CYQ1 with HEARINGS74807.026.eps

Good Morning Chairman Davis, Ranking Member Doggett and members ofthe Committee. I 

am Robert Doar and I am the Commissioner of New York City's largest social services agency, 

the Human Resources Administration (HRA). In New York State, counties administer and 

contribute to the funding of federal social service programs and my Agency manages over $39 

billion in resources in an array of programs including TANF, SNAP, Medicaid, and Child 

Support Enforcement. Thank you for inviting me here today to talk about the efforts underway 

in New York City to better coordinate data across these and other programs. Mayor Michael 

Bloomberg has made it a top priority to break down silos between city agencies in order to better 

serve the millions of participants in our programs as well as to properly administer the significant 

amount of city, state and federal lax dollars. 

NEW YORK CITY'S (HEALTH AND HlTNIAN SERVICES) HHS-CONNECT 

The implementation of a system which shares data across eight health and human service 

agencies that utilize over 80 different case management systems, serve over three million 

recipients, and report to different state and federal oversight agencies was truly ground-breaking. 

We embarked upon this change, HHS-Collllect in 2008 under the strong leadership of the City's 

Deputy Mayor for Health and Human Services, Linda Gibbs. All the commissioners involved 

were also asked to make a strong commitment to the initiative that was monitored and enforced 

by City Hall. 

Although the broader HHS-Collllect blueprint provides for future elements including the 

involvement of additional city agencies and possibly community providers, at present there are 

two major functions that are now well underway. One focuses on client access to information 

about benefits and services, while the other provides workers with access to better data and 

creates a holistic view of the client. 

ACCESS NYC 

Our client portal, ACCESS 1'-<'YC, is a screening tool that provides clients with convenient access 

to many agency services. It allows New York City residents to self-screen for over 30 city, state, 

and federal human services benefit programs. Residents can also apply on-line for SNAP, 

School Meals, and Senior Citizen and Disabled rental increase exemption programs. Recently, 

Medicaid renewals were added to the site and 100,000 SNAP applications have been submitted 

2 
49 


kgrant on DSKB33CYQ1 with HEARINGS74807.027.eps

on-line through this and the New York State's website. ACCESS NYC is available in seven 

different languages and receives an average of 40,000-70,000 visits a day. 

Worker Connect 

Our more complex element was the creation of Worker Connect to facilitate data integration and 

exchange among existing agency information management systems. The idea is to share client 

information and documents on tile across human service agencies while safeguarding 

confidentiality. Historically, workers have never been atIorded a single automated consolidated 

view because the systems of the various agencies didn't talk to one another. Worker Connect is 

a secure, read-only web-based application that allows select city workers to access a limited set 

of information from multiple data sources through one point of entry. However, in order to 

assure compliance with governing privacy laws and regulations, it does not contain information 

related to a client's health, HIV status, mental health, substance abuse history or treatment, or 

domestic violence history, nor does it contain case notes relating to the client. 

Kev Elements: Common Client Index and Document Management 

From a technological perspective, the key components of this application have been the Common 

Client Index (CCI) and Document Management. The CCI is a technology that provides for the 

unique identification of a client across all social service programs and agencies. The CCI is the 

initial process to link the client's identity within any of the participating Health and Human 

Services Agencies. The identifier is used to data mine details such as benefit information, case 

composition, and employment history and display them to workers. One challenge in sharing 

data across systems is that the data formats were not standardized. Therefore, New York City is 

participating in the efforts of the Department of Health and Human Services' Administration for 

Children and Families to establish National Information Exchange Model (NIEM) standards for 

the Health and Human Services Domain. These data standards have facilitated the process for 

dynamic data sharing across systems with differing data definitions. 

The Document Management was based on a technology initially implemented at HRA as an 

electronic repository of documents submitted by clients when they applied for our benefit 

programs-primarily TANF, SNAP and Medicaid. It has assisted both clients and workers by 

eliminating the need to reproduce the same docnments across programs and helps streamline 

application processes in many agencies. For example, it may contain key documents such as a 

lease, a pay stub, a driver's license or a birth certificate which can be viewed by authorized users. 

Health and Human Service Agency Involvement 

Due to the nature of their work, certain agencies in the City tend to use the infonnation while 

others provide it. HRA, as the city agency which determines eligibility for most entitlements and 

with the largest program caseload, is a key provider. Our N ew York City Housing Authority 

also contributes information from their tenant data base about lease holders and other occupants 

in apartments as well as rental amounts. 

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In the altemate, our child welfare agency regularly uses Worker COlmect to quickly identify and 

locate children and guardians they have difficulty finding but are known to other city agencies. 

Oftentimes the reports they receive from a central registry are missing critical identifying 

information, especially when they are called in by anonymous sources. Worker Connect has 

alerted staff to the identity of household members and to the existence of another parent or other 

children who may be at risk. It has also been useful to our homeless agency's intake facility 

where families showing up at the facility often do not have easy access to much of their 

documentation. It has been a huge benefit to have the technology to instantly print and provide 

clients with replacement copies of identifying documents that are essential for them to access 

services. Unless needed for other purposes, clients no longer have to go through the timeconsuming process of applying for replacement birth certificates, driver's licenses, or searching 

for copies ofleases and paystubs. The New York City Health and Hospital Corporation's 

financial counselors also utilize Worker Connect to quickly identify whethet· persons who have 

received care are enrolled in Medicaid or help facilitate an application to the program. 

HRA also uses Worker COlmect as an additional tool in our work to identify fraud, abuse, and 

improper payments within the public assistance programs we administer. Our eligibility 

investigators also use it for eligibility verification to quickly and accurately identify 

inconsistencies, particularly unreported income, between information provided to us on 

applications and that which is submitted to other agencies. In the future we hope to use it to help 

identify patterns of potential fraud and abuse within the public assistance programs we 

admini ster. 

\Vorker Connect Usage 

PA Eligibility 

Verification -

Probation - n.C'UH ___ _ 

Comi- 3% 

Hospital 

Counselors 

46% 

InfOrmation Sharing and Lega! Concerns 

Other 21 User 

TotalProtection 

41% 

I would like to be clear that infonllation sharing was not undertaken lightly. For example, we 

strictly adhered to federal, state, and local laws governing the protection and use of the 

confidential records maintained by our social service agencies. The type of information found in 

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these records was carefully reviewed to detennine whether appropriate legal exceptions apply 

that allow for the authorized disclosure and/or use of certain types of confidential information to 

designated agencies for authorized purposes within our health and human services structure. 

There is an overarching requirement that access to information is only granted in compliance 

with all applicable governing laws and regulations. Administration attorneys conduct case by 

case analysis for all "use cases" and during that vetting process review the: 

• Entity requesting access to the information including user group roles and 

responsibilities; 

• Content of the information requested; 

Source of the infonnation; 

• Purpose and intended use of the infonnation: 

• The reason the information was provided initially; and 

• Existence of any statutory and regulatory restrictions regarding the disclosure of 

confidential infonnation. 

Before any information is shared, there is an assessment ofthe relevance, necessity, and benefit 

of the requested disclosure. Legal counsel analyze whether the disclosure of data would be used 

for a purpose that would further the assistance of clients to access publicly-funded services to 

best meet their needs, and whether the disclosure was in furtherance of the proper administration 

of government programs and benefits. Appropriate legal exceptions are identified to determine 

which types of data may be shared absent the need for individual written consent. 

Federal Requirements- SSA, HIPAA, FERPA 

While this legal analysis was conducted, certain types of data were identified as having 

heightened restrictions on use and/or to disclosure. In particular, federal Social Security 

Administration (SSA) data, federal Health Infom1ation Portability and Accessibility Act 

(HIPAA) protected data health information, and Department of Education's Family Educational 

Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) data. Our attorneys were bound closely by the Privacy Act of 

1974 and restrictions against the improper use or disclosure of SSA maintained data. As HRA's 

use of SSA data is limited to income and eligibility verification purposes, measures were taken 

so that client social security numbers in our system were are not disclosed as part of the HHS 

Connect initiative. Similarly, the issue of individual consent provisions in HIPAA limited the 

sharing of Medicaid infonnation to a data element on Medicaid case status provided to a limited 

group of users. All substance abuse treatment, mental health treatment, domestic violence, child 

abuse and HIVI AIDS records were excluded from the HHS-Connect initiative due to the 

restrictions placed on this infonnation by various laws regarding the sensitive nature of the 

records and the limited circumstances under which disclosure of such records would be 

pennitted. Finally, we have not incorporated any information from our Department of 

Education, as FERP A restricts the data sharing of student education records, without parental 

consent, to very limited exceptions - even in circumstances where the student is a mutual client 

of the New York City's Department of Education and the social service agency. 

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Security and Protecting Data 

Once it is determined who is legally allowed access to particular data, we still needed to make 

sure that the data is protected. In order to accomplish this we implemented a set of standards: 

• Only authorized individuals with verified credentials upon login have access and that 

access is limited to certain data sources or even sometimes a single data element; 

• Data can only be accessed by authorized users with a connection directly to the City's 

secure institutional network; 

• Specific logs are maintained and recorded on both access and attempts to access the 

Syst=l, the activities undertaken once a user is logged in, and any attempt to change 

read-only data elements, as well as on any security events; 

• Built-in protections and double checks exist (Embedded Entitlements Management) to 

ensure users can only view data fields approved for their role; 

• Data in transit is protected using state of the art methods (Secure Sockets layer 

(SSL)iTransport Layer Security (TLS)). 

Lessons Learned Through HHS-Connect and Better Human Service Data Coordination 

Congress and other stakeholders are correct in exploring better ways to coordinate among the 

programs and services that often reach the very same participants. This is a very important 

endeavor and in our experience it was important to proceed methodically, especially to make 

sure that each piece of new technology implemented is working as intended before moving to the 

next phase. For example, for almost the first entire year our Agency was one of the only 

agencies contributing data to the system. Also, although our Common Client Index is already an 

invaluable tool, the next phase of it provides administrators with alerts when data changes within 

one application that may have a bearing on a different system. This phase is only in use in our 

child protection program at this point. 

We also found that it was important to examine the validity of data betwe= agencies and to what 

degree that information can be used. For example, we were disappointed to find that in some 

programs it was not sufficient to see a copy of a passport or birth certificate in the document 

viewer, and that an original document or one that can be confirmed from the issuing source is 

needed. Similarly, certain data elements are universally seen as both accurate and useful, and yet 

their use andlor disclosure is severely limited. For example, Social Security Numbers are the 

easiest unique identifier to use in confirming that the infoffilation being shared among agencies 

concerns the same individual, yet in most instances this is not a "permitted use" for this Social 

Security Administration data. Likewise, many children are known to both educational agencies 

and social services agencies, but federal law severely restricts the ability of the educational 

agencies to share their information, even where it would be use to directly improve the health 

and well-being of the students. 

I also believe that we need to be careful to recognize that the sharing of data is not synonymous 

with the sharing of eligibility mles. Although we strive to make sure that low-income 

individuals and families have appropriate access to the benefits for which they are eligible, we 

need to be mindful of unintended consequences. As a human service administrator for over 15 

6 
53 

f 

Chairman DAVIS. Thank you, Mr. Doar. 

Ms. Zielinskie, you are recognized for five minutes. 


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54 

STATEMENT OF GINGER ZIELINSKIE, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, 

BENEFITS DATA TRUST 

Ms. ZIELINSKIE. Congressman Davis, Congressman Doggett, 

Members of the Subcommittee, thank you so much for the opportunity to testify today and for your ongoing work in regards to the 

Standard Data Act. 

I would like to start today by sharing a quote with you from one 

of our clients, a 58 year old unemployment insurance exhaustee 

who was eligible for more than $200 a month in SNAP benefits. 

‘‘I was so shocked when I received your call. In the past three 

weeks, I have gone through three failed job interviews and I felt 

like a failure. This benefit amount is equivalent to my monthly 

mortgage payment. I am so glad you did not let me drop through 

the cracks.’’ 

Benefits Data Trust is a national not for profit organization committed to transforming how people in need access public benefits. 

We have successfully completed over 280,000 benefit applications 

on behalf of low income Americans through the use of data sharing 

strategies to target outreach and streamline the application process. 

Maximizing private sector targeting outreach strategies, Benefits 

Data Trust has been able to utilize more than 20 different targeted 

Federal and state government agency data sources to conduct national, statewide and regionally-based outreach. 

We all know that data driven strategies can and should combat 

fraud and create efficiencies in the verification process. 

I would like to share with you today five key points on how and 

why, right now, without prohibitive investments in technology, 

data sharing can and should be used to increase access to public 

benefits for the people who need it most. 

First, data sharing strategies can create vast opportunities to 

conduct targeted, cost effective outreach. 

Federal and state agencies can share enrollment data internally, 

across departments, and with business and not for profits to generate targeted outreach lists of millions of individuals who are 

highly likely eligible and not enrolled in benefit programs. 

For example, in 2010, working with the Pennsylvania Department of Labor and Industry and Department of Public Welfare, 

BDT identified 80,000 unemployment insurance exhaustees commonly known as ‘‘99er’s,’’ who were likely eligible and not enrolled 

in SNAP. 

The three entities developed comprehensive data share agreements and a process to generate an automated monthly file of new 

exhaustees eligible for this outreach. 

The targeted outreach achieved initial response rates of 25 percent. In comparison, standard direct marketing delivers response 

rates of closer to one percent. 

Results show that many individuals we help are not familiar 

with the safety net system at all, and have never needed help before. 

Nationally, in the last year, more than 5.5 million people have 

exhausted their unemployment insurance benefits. This illustrates 

the tremendous opportunity and responsibility we have to help 

folks grappling with the recent economic recession. 


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55 

Second, data sharing strategies can streamline the applications 

process and create express lane eligibility opportunities. 

In Philadelphia, Benefits Data Trust receives an automated 

monthly data file of individuals 60 and older who were recently enrolled or were re-certified for Medicaid and not enrolled in SNAP. 

Since income, residency and Social Security number or non-citizenship status were just verified by the same department, an individual does not need to provide proof of these elements on their 

SNAP application. 

Therefore, eligible individuals are able to apply for SNAP in one 

phone call without having to provide any additional documentation. 

This dramatically streamlines the application process for the applicant and the verification process for the administering agency, reducing the cost of outreach, application assistance, and eligibility 

determination. 

New enrollment or recertification in Medicaid, TANF, heat assistance, or the earned income tax credit approval, is an opportune 

moment to help people access other benefits they need and create 

express lane eligibility opportunities. 

Third, increasing access to public benefit programs for people 

who are eligible, especially seniors, helps individuals, strengthens 

our local economies, and reduces long term national health care 

costs. 

Fourth, data driven strategies can cut outreach and application 

assistance costs by more than 70 percent. 

Fifth, there are several actions that the Federal Government can 

take to make it easier for Government, business and not for profits 

to utilize data sharing strategies. 

The Federal Government can take a proactive approach by setting guidance around standard data share and data security provisions. This will immediately provide Government agencies, business and not for profits clarity on how to share and protect data. 

Continuing to fund technical upgrades and integrations of state 

systems as well as projects that utilize data driven approaches to 

outreach and enrollment will continue to enhance improvements in 

this area. 

I would like to end with one last quote from an 82 year old 

woman whom we were able to apply for both food stamps and the 

low income subsidy. 

‘‘I do not even know how you found me. My husband died of Alzheimer’s and we both worked all of our lives. His treatment ate up 

all of our money. Thank you so much.’’ 

[The prepared statement of Ms. Zielinskie follows:] 


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Ginger Zielinskie 

Executive Director, Benefits Data Trust 

April 19, 2012 

Hearing on the Use of Technology 

To Better Target Benefits and Eliminate Waste, Fraud and Abuse 

Subcommittee on Human Resources 

Committee on Ways and Means 

U.S. House of Representatives 
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House Ways and Means Human Resources Sub-committee Hearing on Data 

Standardization 

April 19, 2012 

Mr. Davis, Mr. Doggett, members of the subcommittee: thank you for the opportunity to 

testify and thank you for your ongoing work in regards to the Standard Data Act. 

My name is Ginger Zielinskie and I am the Executive Director of Benefits Data Trust, a 

national not-far-profit organization committed to transforming how people in need access 

public benefits. Over the past 6 years Benefits Data Trust has successfully completed over 

280,000 benefit applications on behalf of people in need through the use of data-sharing 

strategies to target outreach and streamline benefits application assistance. 

Maximizing private sector targeting and outreach strategies, Benefits Data Trust has been 

able to utilize more than twenty different targeted federal and state government agency data 

sources to conduct national, statewide and regionally based outreach to millions of lowincome individuals. 

We all know data-driven strategies can combat fraud and create efficiencies in the 

verification process. I would like to focus my comments on how and why, RIGHT NOW, 

without prohibitive investments in technology, data sharing can and should be used to 

increase access into public benefits for the people who need it most. 

I. Data sharing strategies create vast opportunities to conduct cost-effective 

targeted outreach: 

Federal and State agencies can share enrollment data internally, across 

departments and with business and not-for-profit organizations to generate targeted 

outreach lists of millions of individuals who are highly likely eligible and not enrolled 

in benefit prograrns. 

Example 1: In 2010, working with the Pennsylvania Department of Labor and 

Industry and the Pennsylvania Department of Public Welfare, BOT identified 80,000 

Unemployment Insurance exhaustees or 9gers who were likely eligible but not 

enrolled in SNAP. Together, the three entities developed a data share agreement 

and process to generate an automated file on a monthly basis of new exhaustees not 

currently enrolled in SNAP. Benefits Data Trust then conducts outreach: 

o This targeted outreach achieves initial response rate of 25%. In comparison, 

standard direct marketing delivers response rates closer to 1%. 

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o 40% of the exhaustees BDT speaks to choose to submit an application 

o 45% of these individuals are in such need that they are eligible for expedited 

SNAP benefits and an average benefit amount of $198 per month. Many 

individuals we help are not familiar with the safety net system at all - and 

have never needed help before. 

o 45% of exhaustees BDT assists through this project are over age 50. 

o To date, BDT has helped more than 10,000 9gers apply for SNAP. 

Nationally, in the last year more than 5.5 million people have exhausted their 

Unemployment Insurance benefits. This illustrates the tremendous opportunity and 

responsibility we have to help folks grappling with the results of the recent recession. 

Example 2: Beginning in 2006, working under contract as a prime outreach and 

enrollment agent for the Pennsylvania Department of Aging (PDA) PACE Program, 

Benefits Data Trust engaged in a targeted outreach project to increase access to the 

State Prescription Assistance Program, PACE. Throughout the project PDA 

developed a standardized process to share multiple data files across diverse 

agencies. The following data files have been utilized for PACE outreach: 

Pennsylvania Department of Welfare 

Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) enrollees 

Medicare Savings Plan (MSP) enrollees 

Low-Income Heating Assistance Program (LiHEAP) enrollees 

Pennsylvania Department of Revenue 

Property Tax and Re"t Rebate (PTRR) recipients 

Pennsylvania Department of Transportation 

Ifldividuals eligible for reduced fees 

Pennsylvania Department of Aging 

Clearinghouse Program 

Options program participants 

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Medicare Part D Healthcare Companies 

CCRx 

Geisinger 

I ndependence Blue Cross 

UPMC 

Center for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) 

Individuals redeemed/redetermined for the Low Income Subsidy 

Pennsylvania Department of Military and Veterans Affairs 

Veteran's Pension recipients 

other Agencies 

Pennsylvania Employees Benefit Trust Fund (PEBTF) participants 

• The use of these lists has allowed BOT to complete over 144,000 PACE applications 

on behalf of low-income seniors in Pennsylvania. 

II. Data sharing strategies can streamline the application processes and create 

express lane eligibility opportunities: 

There are many common data elements across benefit applications. If particular data 

elements have been recently verified by one agency, then this information can and 

should be considered verified by other agencies. 

Our work in Philadelphia to help older Philadelphians access SNAP through the 

BenePhilly Enrollment Center illustrates how Data sharing can create express lane 

opportunities. 

Under this project, Benefits Data Trust receives an automated monthly data file from 

the Pennsylvania Department of Public Welfare of individuals who were recently 

enrolled in or re-certified for Medicaid. Since income, residency and citizenship were 

just verified by the department, an individual does not need to provide proof of these 

elements on their SNAP application. 

o Therefore, individuals who have recently enrolled in or recertified for Medicaid 

and had already had their necessary information reviewed are able to apply 

for SNAP - in one phone call - without having to provide any documentation. 

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This dramatically streamlines the process for the applicant as well as the 

administering agency. 

91% of all express lane eligibility applicants were successfully 

enrolled in SNAP under the BenePhilly Enrollment Center Project 

o New enrollment or recertification in Medicaid, TANF, LlHEAP, Low-Income 

Subsidy or Earned Income Tax Credit approval is an opportune moment to 

help people access other benefits they need. 

III. A true person-centered approach providing comprehensive benefits 

application assistance is critical to maintaining program integrity and most 

cost-effectively assisting people in need access public benefits 

While auto-enrollment with integrated electronic application processing 

capabilities is the gold standard we seek to achieve, it is critical to note that it 

must be coupled with a professional person-centered support system in order to 

ensure accuracy and provide high quality customer service. 

IV. Increasing access to benefit programs for people that are eligible - especially 

seniors - helps individuals, strengthens local economies and reduces longterm national health care costs. Access to public benefits will: 

Improve health outcomes and quality of life for seniors and their families and 

allow them to remain as independent for as long as possible;i 

Help people reach and maintain economic security; and 

Stimulate local economies. Every $1.00 in benefits distributed through the SNAP 

program equals $1.79 in economic stimulus.i

' 

V. Data driven strategies can cut outreach and application assistance costs by 

more than 70%. 

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Per Application Comparison of Outreach, Enrollment and Administrative Costs 

Associated with Select Benefits Programs 

VI. There are several actions that the federal government can take to make it 

easier for government, businesses, and not-for-profits to utilize data sharing 

strategies: 

Data standardization across programs and state lines as you have enumerated on in 

the Standard Data Act is paramount 

Guidance around standard data share and data security provisions can provide 

government agencies, businesses, and not-for-profit organizations clarity on how to 

share and protect data. 

Continuing to fund technical upgrades and integrations of state systems as well as 

projects that utilize data driven approaches to outreach and enrollment will continue 

to enhance improvements in this area. 

o The Social Security Administration's use of the Medicare Improvements for 

Patients and Providers Act (MIPPA) data is a prime example of how federal 

agencies can be leaders in how to maximize data to increase access. Every 

month, state welfare agencies receive a file from SSA of individuals who have 

applied for the Low Income Subsidy. Across the country this data has been used 

to increase access into the Medicare Savings Program, SNAP and other benefits 

that help seniors reach and maintain economic security. 

1 Per the PA SNAP Outreach Plan 

Meeting the Challenge of Enrolfing Medicare Beneficiaries with Limited Incomes. 2005 

Accessed on March 22, 2011 at 

llilf,iJ.I."""""q']!}.'''"!.;>/ic,,,-c.;ln'''QU1m.,!l.P_"",,",,,'l9Dl..iJ!!,-,,''llI1cILLjj. Based on total per application cost of $671 less the average benefit of 

6 
62 

f 

Chairman DAVIS. Thank you very much, Ms. Zielinskie. 

Mr. McDonald, you are recognized for five minutes. 


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63 

STATEMENT OF DARRYL MCDONALD, EXECUTIVE VICE 

PRESIDENT, TERADATA CORPORATION 

Mr. MCDONALD. Good morning, Chairman Davis and distinguished Members of the Subcommittee, and thank you for the opportunity to testify here today. 

I am Darryl McDonald representing Teradata Corporation. For 

30 years, Teradata has redefined the lead of database technology 

and the use of advanced analytics. 

Among the nearly 1,400 Teradata customers, companies such as 

eBay, Wal-Mart, Wells Fargo, Caterpillar, and AT&T, have learned 

how to recognize data as their most valuable asset by transforming 

that data into useful information. 

These same approaches can be applied to the Government. 

My testimony today will focus on how applying advanced analytic 

solutions to massive data sets or big analytics helps Federal agencies meet complex, large scale mission demands despite unprecedented budget cuts and infrastructure. 

It is important to remember that big analytics are not futuristic 

or incomprehensible. In fact, one of the best known example is from 

Major League Baseball, the 2002 Oakland A’s. 

As described in the book ‘‘Moneyball: The Art of Winning An Unfair Game,’’ and the subsequent movie and feature film, the A’s 

used data analytics to more effectively compete against other teams 

using less money. 

A lesser known example is from one of our state government customers found in Michigan. Since 1996, the State of Michigan has 

been creating their enterprise data warehouse which supports reduced health care costs and a 25 percent reduction in administrative costs. 

The Michigan enterprise data warehouse has also aided the state 

in many ways, including doubling the recoveries for Medicaid 

fraud, moving from last to first in child immunization rates, and 

identifying more than $70 million in fraudulent child care. 

Imagine the benefits achieved by Michigan at the scale of Federal Government. 

Giving Federal decision makers the ability to utilize all the data 

on hand to find underlining insights is essential for effective risk 

management, cost containment, and mission success. 

Rather than making weak decisions with data sampling, big analytics utilized all the available data to enable fact based decisions. 

Big data analytics cuts analysis time from weeks or months to near 

real time and enables continuous improvements to meet changing 

technology, regulatory and mission needs. 

As one of the world’s largest creators and consumers of data, the 

Federal Government will see its long term future of success or failure linked to how well it addresses big data. 

Teradata has numerous and varied success stories of helping clients integrate and understand and leverage big data at the Federal 

and state levels, within and outside the U.S. 

For example, the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Risk Management Agency has successfully applied data and analytics within the 

Federal Crop Insurance Program, by bringing together disparate 

data to identify and combat fraudulent claims, the agencies have 

saved the American taxpayers approximately $838 million in imVerDate Mar 15 2010 19:17 Oct 29, 2013 Jkt 074807 PO 00000 Frm 00067 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 I:\WAYS\OUT\74807.XXX 74807

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64 

proper pay outs from 2001 to 2011, with cost avoidance estimated 

at $1.5 billion. 

Another example is the U.S. Transportation Command. The Legacy information systems used by Transportation Command limited 

the visibility to historic and current shipment and arrival detail. 

Today, data from 33 different systems is integrated to improve 

decisions with near real time visibility across the Department of 

Defense. 

A final example is the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services and the CMS Data Dashboards. Completed within five weeks, 

the initial Dashboard was launched early because among other reasons, the historical claim data was housed in a single system. 

With many organizations seeing tremendous benefit, a logical 

next question is how do we motivate more Government agencies to 

adopt big analytics? 

In that respect, Mr. Chairman, the timing of this hearing could 

not be better. Teradata strongly supports H.R. 3339 and respectfully requests Congress to pass this legislation. 

Not only would this legislation improve cost effective delivery of 

essential services to millions of Americans, but it would also create 

a stepping stone for other Government agencies to understand and 

acquire the benefits of big analytics. 

Consider the lessons from Moneyball. If analytics can change a 

hundred year sport like baseball, think of the possibilities for Government. 

Once again, Mr. Chairman, thank you for your continued leadership on this issue, and Teradata stands ready to support you and 

your colleagues. 

Thank you. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. McDonald follows:] 


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Statement of Darryl McDonald 

Of Teradata Corporation 

Testimony Before the 

House Ways and Means Committee 

Subcommittee on Human Resources 

On 

April 19, 2012 

In 

Longworth House Office Building, Room 1100 

At 

10:00 A.M. 

A Hearing Entitled: 

"Use of Technology to Better Target Benefits and Eliminate Waste, Fraud, 

and Abuse 
66 


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Chairman Davis, Ranking Member Doggett, and distinguished members of the 

Subcommittee, thank you for the opportunity to testify today on this important 

subject. 

I am Darryl McDonald representing Teradata Corporation. For thirty years, Teradata 

has continually redefined the leading edge of database technology and advanced 

analytics, enabling organizations to transform raw data into strategic advantage 

and attain their visions. As executive vice president of applications, business 

development and Chief Marketing Officer, I help ensure the innovation behind our 

products and services meet the evolving needs of our diverse government and 

commercial customers. 

We are living in a time when the volume of data is growing at an enormous rate. 

Among the nearly 1400 Teradata customers, more than 300 have 100+ terabyte 

systems while the number of customers with petabyte sized systems doubled 

between the years 2010 to 2011. To put those metrics into perspective, ten 

terabytes could hold the printed collection of the Library of Congress; and a 

petabyte is 1000 terabytes, or the approximate equivalent of 13.3 years of HD-TV 

video. These customers have seen the advantages of using the data available to 

them - not by keeping the data in data silos but by integrating it to bring value to 

the organization - through improved operations, service delivery and customer 

engagement. The returns on investment from the successful implementation of 

these systems have been substantial. 

The list of companies using Teradata includes technology leaders from across all 

industries including eBay, Walmart, Caterpillar, Wells Fargo, United Airlines, AT&T 

and Ford to name a few. These companies are getting smarter by not only 

recognizing data as their most valuable asset, but also by transforming that data 

into useful insight for better decision making. They further use this intelligence for 

analyzing customers' experiences and preferences, to create new products and 

improve service delivery. We believe that these approaches can be applied by 

government agencies to streamline operations and improve service delivery while 

achieving the goals of their missions. Mr. Chairman, we also believe that smarter 

government is smaller government. 

My testimony today focuses on applying advanced analytics to massive data sets -

what Teradata terms "big analytics" - to help federal agencies meet complex, 

large-scale mission demands despite unprecedented budget cuts and constraints. 

How Moneyball Helps Explain the Value of Big Analytics 

It's important to remember that even though big analytics helps address huge, 

complicated problems, the principles behind it aren't futuristic or incomprehensible. 
67 


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In fact, one of the best known recent examples that illustrates the value of big 

analytics doesn't come from government, but from Major League Baseball: the 

2002 Oakland A's, as described in Michael Lewis' 2003 book Moneyball: The Art of 

Winning an Unfair Game and the 2011 feature film Moneyball. 

The book and film relate how the A's' used data analytics to successfully compete 

better against other teams that could outspend them to attract the best talent. The 

data analytics used quantitatively analyze player data. Armed with insight provided 

by the data analytics, the A's assembled a team of players undervalued by 

traditional baseball criteria. 

Though controversial at the time, Oakland's bet on data analytics paid off 

handsomely and changed the sport forever. The A's finished the 2002 season first 

in the American League West with an American League record 20-game winning 

streak that still stands today. Two years later, data analytics helped the Boston Red 

Sox break the "Curse of the Bambino" and win their first World Series in 86 years. 

Since then, many teams have added full-time analysts to their staffs. 

The parallels between Moneyball and our current situation are many, including: 

Just as the A's found value in undervalued players, the federal government 

has lots of undervalued data that it can, and must, leverage to improve 

mission success. 

Unable to spend their way out of problems, the A's had to discover what 

metrics most contributed to mission success and cost-effectively manage 

legacy and new assets to accomplish that goal. The federal government faces 

similar challenges today. 

Both the A's in 2002 and the federal government today face entrenched 

cultural resistance to change from both within their organizations and from 

their larger communities. But once organizations see the benefits of change -

and data analytics in particular - they can move quickly to adopt it and see 

immediate, widespread and substantial benefits. 

Moneyball is an excellent example of how data analytics can transform individual 

organizations and entire industries. It's especially relevant in this forum because if 

any pursuit is more devoted to statistics than baseball, it's government. As a 

nation, we of course have more on the line than winning baseball games. But the 

principle still stands that leveraging insight from integrated data provides 

considerable advantages to accomplishing federal agencies' diverse missions. 

A Lesser Known Example: Michigan's Data Warehouse Delivers $1 Million 

per Business Day 
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A lesser known example from a Teradata state government customer can be found 

in the State of Michigan. One of our most successful public sector clients, 

recognized by the 2012 ComputerWorld Laureate program, is Michigan. Initiated in 

1996, the Michigan enterprise data warehouse (EDW) is accessed by 10,000 users 

in five departments, 20 agencies and 100 bureaus, mostly used within the areas 

supporting Medicaid/Health and Human Services. 

No other state in the United States has achieved Michigan's level of proven results 

from an EDW. Users include: Department of Community Health (MDCH), 

Department of Human Services (DHS), Department of Natural Resources, 

Department of Licensing and Regulator Affairs (DLARA), Secretary of State, 

Department of Treasury, plus 10 judicial and justice organizations. 

As one of the primary users of the EDW, DHS is a perfect example of how the data 

warehouse demonstrates best practices for a state agency. Traditional data 

processing systems are absolutely necessary and are the life-blood of DHS. They 

are used to determine eligibility and issue benefits payments to clients receiving 

public assistance. However, the agency's data is not accessible in a useful form to 

analysts and administrators who need it the most. The information is typically 

entered and stored on many different computer systems, each serving a specific 

purpose and using its own format. Quite often, lack of consistency makes it 

extremely difficult to correlate data by drawing on information from several 

databases. What's more, the level of technical difficulty involved usually makes it 

impractical for administrators to perform their own interactive queries on the data. 

The end result is that agencies have become data rich, but have limited ability to 

transform this data into useable information. 

In general, without the EDW, most of the time would be spent looking for data, 

rather than analyzing it. Because the EDW allows for interactive follow-up 

questions, it is much more useful than standard, pre-existing reports. The EDW 

helps uncover trends that previously would have remained hidden. 

A few of the most prominent DHS projects include: 

Food Assistance Program (FAP) Automated Find and Fix (AFF)-by identifying 

food assistance cases not receiving correct benefit levels, this project 

identified and corrected almost $500 million dollars that were mis-issued to 

FAP clients from 2005-09. 

Fraud Detection-the Office of Inspector General (OIG) uses the data 

warehouse heavily in detecting fraud within the various program areas that 

DHS administers. Primarily focused on Child Day Care, Medicaid, Food 

Assistance, and Cash Assistance, the EDW has assisted OIG in identifying 

$70+ million in the last four years. 

Bridges Information Management Mart-used to balance caseloads among 

workers, this online system provides case listings and counts, and provides 
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performance metrics to help assist in the day-to-day management of the 

local office. It is estimated to be responsible for $18 million per year in 

streamlined labor efficiencies. For example, the amount of time that a worker 

spends putting together benefit redetermination packages has been reduced 

by 75%. 

Child Support-holds a collection of data from other agencies, which allows a 

very sophisticated and comprehensive method to "locate" non-custodial 

parents for the purpose of collecting child support. Ranked as one of the topperforming states in the country, the Office of Child Support is perennially 

rewarded with high levels of federal incentive money. In addition, these child 

support collections offset a large amount of money that otherwise, would 

have been distributed to clients as public assistance dollars. 

Family Reunification-DHS and the State Court Administrative Office share 

data and conduct analytics to protect and care for children in cases involving 

child abuse, neglect, foster care, adoption and legal guardianship among the 

16,000 children enrolled in child welfare services in Michigan. Over nine 

months after initial implementation, Michigan increased family reunifications 

by 34% among temporary court wards. 

The data warehouse has evolved from its original use to become the primary tool 

used to bring information from all 12 MDCH separate health-related program areas, 

encompassing 34 separate data sources, into a single environment. Today, MDCH 

can monitor the cost and care associated with a single individual across multiple 

programs. The data warehouse has since become a critical and productive part of 

the agency's efforts. 

Michigan is a leader in using data integration and yielding a 15: 1 cost effectiveness 

ratio for ONE state agency. Michigan stands as an example for all governments on 

sharing data across multiple agencies. 

Big Data Complicates Decision-Making 

Imagine the benefits achieved by Michigan at the scale of the federal government. 

The federal government faces a broad array of difficult challenges, from ensuring 

national and homeland security to providing essential services and encouraging 

U.S. economic competitiveness at home and abroad. A common trend among all 

these different responsibilities is the massive increase in the amount of data 

government agencies create and collect as they perform their duties. In that 

respect, the federal government reflects the global trend of near-exponential data 

growth over the next decade. IDC estimates that the amount of data worldwide 

doubles every two years,; with 1.8 zettabytes - 1.8 trillion gigabytes - created and 

duplicated in 2011 alone. 
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Not surprisingly, this blizzard of big data has the potential to overwhelm many 

federal decision-makers. These massive data sets involve complex and varied data 

that is both structured, such as spreadsheets; and unstructured, which includes 

most of the other data organizations today collect, from emails to social media 

content to video footage. Much of this data is in non-standard formats and resides 

on non-interoperable legacy systems in multiple locations. This data explosion leads 

to an obvious question: How can decision-makers at every level of an organization 

be confident they're drawing the right conclusions from all that data to ensure they 

best accomplish their agencies' missions? 

Getting the answer right to this question is mission critical for federal agencies. The 

ability of federal decision makers to utilize all data on hand to find underlying 

insights is essential for effective risk management, cost containment and mission 

success. This is especially true as the federal government tries to weather record 

budget deficits and navigate through the worst economy since the Great Depression 

by mandating agencies find the most cost-effective solutions possible. 

What's more, all these trends I've just described are accelerating. In its 2012 

Trends to Watch: Government Technology report, the research and consulting firm 

Ovum posits that data is replacing oil as the main driver of the global economy, 

with analytics tools a key means to extracting value from that resource.i'rhe 

omnipresence of the Internet and social media are driving societal demands for 

government to provide authoritative, accurate data and make fact-based, real-time 

decisions from it. As one of the world's largest and most influential creators and 

consumers of data, the federal government will see its long-term success or failure 

inextricably linked to how it handles big data, not only for research and 

investigation but for also managing its own business operations. 

Big Analytics Solutions Help Overcome Persistent Problems 

To overcome the challenges I've just described, federal decision-makers need big 

data analytics tools that: 

help them extract actionable insights and deliver the right ones to the right 

people in time to make a difference 

handle multiplying, diverse and overlapping avalanches of structured and 

unstructured data 

maximize resource efficiency and improve secure collaboration and 

productivity 

avoid data redundancy and improve data quality and re-use 

increase confidence in the data that is used for decision making 

improve end results for both users and those who rely upon them 
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Big analytics solutions help assure decision-makers that their important decisions 

are fact-based and not weakened by data sampling errors because all integrated 

data is available for analysis. They cut analysis time from weeks or months to nearreal time and enable continuous improvement to meet constantly changing 

technology, regulatory and mission needs. 

By helping evaluate past and current data and determine the most cost-effective 

courses of future action, big analytics solutions are invaluable in finding and fixing 

the root causes of persistent, confounding problems. Their usefulness is visible 

across government, from improving cybersecurity and military operations, to 

tailoring regulations and policy and rooting out fraud, waste and abuse, to 

understanding the needs of citizens and making a difference at an individual level. 

I am honored to share Teradata's role in helping government customers make the 

best decisions from big data. Teradata is among the world's largest companies 

focused solely on big data analytics and data warehousing. Our big analytics 

offerings enable organizations to scrutinize enormous data sets, find actionable 

insights and gain advantage from those insights most cost-effectively. We empower 

individuals - government employees, contractors, partners and citizens - to do 

more, be more economically productive and transform the way government 

agencies operate. 

I would also like to emphasize that Teradata stands ready to help your fellow 

colleagues and other government officials understand the possibilities big analytics 

presents. Agencies already have the data needed to deploy big analytics today. 

Every day the federal government puts off implementing big analytics on the data it 

already has means money wasted and millions of Americans not receiving essential 

services more efficiently. 

Federal and State Big Analytics Success Stories 

I have already mentioned the success achieved in the State of Michigan, but 

Teradata has nearly 1400 global commercial and government customers worldwide, 

and we have numerous success stories of helping public sector clients integrate, 

understand and leverage big data. Teradata's federal customers in the U.S. include 

the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Centers for Medicare and 

Medicaid Services (HHS CMS), the U.S. Air Force Materiel Command, the U.S. 

Department of Defense Transportation Command (TRANSCOM), Naval Air Systems 

Command (NAVAIR), and the U.S. Department of Justice, among many others that 

extend our reach to both the state and national levels of government globally. 

Our examples include: 
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The u.s. Air Force (USAF) Materiel Command integrates more than 60 source 

systems to provide clear and accurate decision-making information for the 

USAF logistics community to quickly provide the ability to see where 

resources are currently deployed throughout the global supply chain, allowing 

the best course of action in response to critical time sensitive events. 

Intangible benefits include access to accurate, reliable, timely and trusted 

information. The prior process required an Air Force employee to access 

each and every information system, often logging onto more than 60 

systems to run a query, download the results, aggregate the results, then 

compile the results in an easily understood format. This process could take 

hours to days, depending on how complex the question was. Today, the 

same information is integrated into a single system and available in near 

real-time with a couple of clicks. The speed and accuracy of obtaining this 

information cannot be precisely measured with metrics or cost savings; 

rather by customer satisfaction and executing the Air Force mission. 

The US Transportation Command, which provides air, land and sea 

transportation for the Department of Defense, had previously used a legacy 

system for supply chain and distribution visibility. This system, however, 

provided limited visibility to shipment and arrival detail with limited historical 

data. Today, they have the ability to bring together data from 33 different 

internal systems plus 600 commercial feeds to improve their decision 

making. Different agencies and functional areas now access this information 

from a single source, providing near real-time visibility of cargo and 

personnel movements, trend analysis and projections on 5 years of data, 

cost reductions, streamlined operations and improves the logistics 

information sharing across the Department of Defense. 

Eight U.S. states have recovered $1.6+ billion - and counting - in recovered 

tax revenues from non-compliant tax filers across by integrating data from 

the IRS, other state agencies, and external data. By identifying anomalies in 

the data, the states target areas to improve taxpayer and tax preparer 

education, provide data for more informed policy decisions, and more easily 

identify under- and non- payment of taxes. Efficiencies are further gained by 

providing access to a single view of the taxpayer audit through a case 

management system, available to any of the approved staff of the tax and 

revenue compliance departments, eliminating the need for inefficient paper 

processes and improving customer satisfaction. 

Another example includes the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services 

(CMS) within the Department of Health and Human Services. As part of the 

open government initiative, CMS was able to simplify and make its data more 

accessible to researchers and policymakers through the CMS Dashboards. 

The initial implementation was completed within 5 weeks - one week short of 

the deadline. They were able to make this data available in such a short 
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timeframe because CMS already had claims data available in a single system 

going back to the year 2006. 

U.s. Department of Agriculture (USDA): Teradata has helped the U.S. 

Department of Agriculture's Risk Management Agency's Center for 

Agribusiness Excellence, led by Dr. Bert Little of Tarleton University, se 

marked success with data analytics to avoid an estimated $1.5 billion in 

related costs. The Center use data analytics to ensure the integrity and costefficiency of the Federal Crop Insurance program, particularly by combating 

fraudulent claims. From 2001 to 2011, the Center saved American taxpayers 

approximately $838 million in improper payouts. 

With many government organizations seeing tremendous benefits from the big 

analytics deployments they have made so far, a logical next question is how to 

overcome the challenges I described above to motivate more government agencies 

to adopt big analytics. Profit, shareholders and competitive advantage motivate 

commercial users, while regulatory compliance, cost containment and improving 

mission performance drive government agencies. 

In that respect, the timing of this hearing couldn't be better. Legislation requiring 

standard data content and formats currently has bipartisan support in both 

chambers of Congress. Data standardization improves the efficiency of big data 

exchanges, which makes adopting big analytics easier and more cost-effective. Last 

September, President Obama signed the first such bill into law: the Child and 

Family Services Improvement and Innovation Act of 2011, which requires data 

standardization for federal human services programs. In addition, the same 

provisions have been enacted recently in unemployment insurance and TANF 

programs (PL 112-96). H.R. 3339, the Standard Data Act, introduced last 

November builds off that success as well as H. R. 4282 which addresses the needs in 

the child support program. 

Mr. Chairman, thank you for your leadership on this legislation. Teradata strongly 

supports both H.R. 3339 and H.R. 4282 and respectfully requests Congress to pass 

this much needed legislation as quickly as possible. Not only would this legislation 

improve cost-effective delivery of essential services to millions of Americans, but it 

would also serve also as a stepping stone for other government agencies to 

understand and acquire the benefits of big analytics. Consider the lessons from 

Moneyball, the best decisions wins and those decisions are based on the ability to 

integrate data, make it accessible, and perform big analytics. The better agencies 

know what data they have and how they can use it, the more they can costeffectively protect our country, improve service delivery and eliminate waste, fraud, 

and abuse. 
74 

f 

Chairman DAVIS. Thank you very much, Mr. McDonald. 

Mr. Pryde? 

STATEMENT OF CAMPBELL PRYDE, PRESIDENT AND CHIEF 

EXECUTIVE OFFICER, XBRL US 

Mr. PRYDE. Chairman Davis, Ranking Member Doggett, and 

Members of the Subcommittee, thank you for inviting me here to 

discuss the use of standards to improve Government reporting. 

I am Campbell Pryde, President and CEO of XBRL U.S., a nonprofit organization established to support the implementation of 

standardized business reporting by Government and business 

through marketplace collaboration. 

I applaud you and the other Members of Congress who are striving to make Government more effective and efficient by using data 

standards. 

I will briefly discuss one such standard, the Extensible Business 

Reporting Language or XBRL. 

XBRL is a data standard that is used to communicate financial 

and performance related data by both business and Government. 

The objective of XBRL is to enable compatibility and comparison 

of the data that is being standardized. 

Shipping containers are an useful analogy to demonstrate the 

importance of data compatibility. The standard shipping container 

revolutionized the way that products were transported from the 

manufacturer to the consumer. It increased the speed of delivering 

products to market and reduced perishable waste. It reduced transfer costs between ships, trucks and rail. 

No longer did it separate products, have to be manually loaded 

onto trucks, reset onto ships, and off loaded onto trains. 

This also drastically reduced loss through theft. 

It ultimately changed the design of ships and trains to accommodate the new shipping containers allowing both ships and trains to 

carry far more cargo. 

Finally, it reduced storage costs because cargo is moved more 

quickly and it can be stacked at storage facilities. 

All of these gains were the result of developing a global standard 

for shipping containers. The manufacturers, the shipping companies and the transportation companies realized that they could 

drastically reduce handling costs with a simple standardized solution that was compatible between trucks, trains and ships. 

Today’s management of financial reporting data in Government 

resembles the transport industry before the introduction of the 

shipping container. 


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75 

The implementation of data standards such as XBRL can improve the speed, reduce the transfer costs between systems, allow 

more data to be moved and reduce storage costs by allowing storage in one format. 

In addition to compatibility, data standards also facilitate the 

comparison of data. By standardizing financial and performance 

data, it can be quickly compared. This allows data to be easily aggregated and disaggregated, giving the users the ability to 

disaggregate or drill down into information, providing improved 

transparency and the ability to compare, for example, the relative 

performance of recipients of Federal funds. 

It is important, however, that everyone uses the same standard. 

Standards, just like electrical plugs, are standardized within countries, but unlike the shipping container, the electrical plug standard is not global. This lack of standardization requires the need for 

adapters and transformers to use the same product across countries. 

The use of different data standards across agencies will result in 

the same problem. 

Some recent legislation has suggested the use of XML as a reporting standard. XML is a flexible data standard that like electrical plugs can use different formats to deliver electricity, or in 

this case, information. 

Allowing agencies to use their own variants of XML to communicate financial reporting data will result in data compatibility 

issues between agencies and will minimize the ability of taxpayers 

or policy makers to efficiently analyze such information. 

XBRL is a specific data standard and ensures that reported financial information is compatible and comparable across all agencies. 

Moreover, XBRL eliminates the need for adapters or transformers to transfer the comparable financial data between users. 

Standards like XBRL will ensure that financial and performance 

information can be transported in a cost effective and timely way 

from creation through to analysis. 

This will enable you as policy makers to monitor and track Government spending as well as use up to date financial information 

to make appropriate future allocation decisions. 

It will also allow the Federal, state and local agencies and other 

recipients of Federal funds to analyze how those funds are used. 

Most importantly, using data standards like XBRL to communicate this information will reduce costs, increase speed, increase 

transparency, and increase the effectiveness of taxpayer dollars 

spent. 

XBRL U.S. has vast experience and expertise in XBRL development through our work with the SEC and the FDIC. We are ready 

and available to help Congress and those in the Federal and interested state agencies in this important initiative. 

Thank you again for having us here today, and I look forward to 

answering your questions. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Pryde follows:] 


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Prepared Testimony to the Subcommittee on Human Resources on 

The Use of Technology to Better Target Benefits and Eliminate Waste, Fraud, and Abuse 

Executive 

Statement of Campbell Pryde 

President and CEO 

XBRL US 

Thursday, April 19, 2012 

10:00am 

1100 Longworth House Office Building 

Washington, D.C. 

Chairman Davis, Ranking Member Doggett, and members of the subcommittee, thank you for inviting 

me here today to discuss the use of technology to better target benefits and eliminate waste, fraud, and 

abuse. I am Campbell Pryde, President and CEO of XBRL US, a non-profit organization established to 

support the implementation of standardized business reporting within the public and private sectors by 

promoting XBRl adoption through marketplace collaboration. 

I am here today to discuss how a standardized data tagging language can be used to create better 

analyses and increase efficiencies for business and government. My testimony will explain the 

importance of standards, how data tagging works, and will describe XML and of course, XBRL. 

Data standards are critical to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of communicating and analyzing. 

The primary benefits of standards are comparability and compatibility of information. 

Data standards were created for different purposes - some are extremely flexible, some are more 

restrictive. Many standards were created to solve a very specific need and others are very broad, and 

designed to handle lots of different situations. XML is one such very broad standard. Its flexibility 

makes it useful for lots of very different applications and it is widely used in the commercial 

marketplace. The flexibility of XML makes it ideal as the base for many other standards, including 

XHTML, RSS feeds, NIEM and XBRL (Extensible Business Reporting Language). That flexibility, however, 

makes it less suitable for the reporting of financial and performance-related data. 

When choosing a standard, it is important to select one that best addresses the need at hand. XBRL was 

developed to specifically handle reporting of financial and performance-related information for business 

or government. My testimony today will discuss how XBRl is uniquely suited to reporting government 

financial and performance data and why it is a better option than just XML. It needs no further 

adaptation or development. Using XBRl to track, report, and evaluate the effectiveness of government 
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programs will ensure that government agencies, the public and others have access to the most timely, 

accurate data produced in an efficient and cost-effective manner. 

of Standards 

Standards are all around us and have developed as a means to reduce costs, improve communication, 

and encourage efficiency. Electrical plugs, shipping containers, units of measure, and TCPIf', the Internet 

protocol that allows us to communicate over the World Wide Web, are commonly used standards that, 

whether we know it or not, we rely on every day. 

Data standards are agreed upon definitions, formats and features of commonly used information. The 

key components of a data standard are descriptive names, definitions, and formatting rules. Data 

standards often include information describing procedures, implementation guidelines, and usage 

requirements. 

Standards are important to the smooth functioning of our everyday lives because they allow for 

compatibility and comparability. For example, internet communication protocols or standards like 

TCPIP have facilitated a massive increase in data communication because data is conveyed in a 

compatible way between computer systems. Compact discs and MP3 players are also good examples of 

the "compatibility" benefit of standards - the standardization of music file readers eliminates the need 

for multiple media programs and music players, which increases ease of use and portability of 

purchased music while at the same time reduces cost for consumers. 

Standards also enable comparability. Units of measure, such as meters or feet, establish a normalized 

means of gauging size so that two items can be compared. Data standards are critical to enabling 

comparability. One such standard, e21tensible .!!usiness Reporting Language, or XBRL, is a language 

format used to report business and financial data electronically. Data formatted in XBRL has computerreadable descriptive information including labels, definitions and other characteristics such as 'units' or 

'currency' embedded in the data. Taken collectively, this descriptive information gives the reader 

contextual information about each piece of data. With XBRL, data is no longer simply a block of text or a 

figure; its contents are readable, searchable, moveable, and extractable for easier analysis and reporting 

of info rm ati on. 

A financial statement formatted in XBRL also enables comparability among different company financials. 

This is because the terms and definitions used, e.g., Revenue, Earnings per Share, Cash, etc. have been 

previously agreed-upon so that multi-entity comparisons can be performed with ease, and with 

confidence in the data. 
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There are many types of data formats such as comma-separated values (CSV), a simple, plain-text file 

format widely used in consumer, business and scientific applications to move tabular data between 

programs. JavaScript Object Notation (JSON) is an open standard for human-readable data exchange 

which is used for serializing and transmitting data over a network, primarily between a server and a web 

application. 

One of the more widely known data standards is Extensible Markup Language (XML) which is both 

human- and machine-readable and was created to structure, stofe and transmit data. XML allows you 

to define data in a standard format such as in an email: 

<email> 

<to>joe.smith@xml.com <Ito> 

<from>jane.doe@xbrl.us</from> 

<subject>Reminder</subject> 

<body>Meeting scheduled for gam Wednesday.</body:> 

<{email> 

XML is information wrapped in tags. The "tags" are the items contained inside angle brackets (<» which 

tell the computer what the information means. The data itself sits between a set of angle brackets such 

as "joe.smith@xml.com". The <to> tag tells the computer that the email message recipient is Joe 

Smith. XML's tagging structure is extremely flexible and can be used for numerous applications that 

require information to be identified by a computer. 

Because of this flexibility, XML can be used to capture information about almost anything and multiple 

versions of XML can be used to do exactly the same thing. For example, two government agencies, 

seeking to track and analyze performance measures on funds spent on their individual programs, could 

develop XML-based applications that rely on completely different software for collection, reporting and 

analysis. Each of the two agency applications could also use different definitions and labels to explain 

the same information, e.g., Program Costs. While each XML application technically may perform the 

required reporting, performance data from the two agencies would not be compatible, making it 

difficult, costly and time-consuming to compare program performance across agencies. A more 

standard language, such as XBRL, will facilitate collaboration between agencies to ensure that similar 

concepts are defined and handled the same way. 

Organizations use XML to build proprietary data standards and applications every day. However, unless 

more than one party agrees to use a specific "version" of XML, it is not a standard and does not provide 
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the benefits of standards - comparability, consistency and cost reduction through the leveraging of the 

same software. 

A set of agreed upon XML tags becomes incrementally more valuable when more people and 

organizations agree to use it and build applications around it. Many standards have evolved in this 

fashion - a group of people and organizations have agreed upon a defined set of XML tags and structure 

designed for a specific purpose which creates a more specific data standard. Below are a few examples: 

NIEM - National Information Exchange Markup, which offers a common vocabulary so 

information can be exchanged in a common language between government agencies. 

Extensible HyperText Markup Language (XHTML)- used to define the display of web pages, e.g., 

font, bolding, underline, etc. 

RSS - Real Simple Syndication - used to transmit a single feed of data, e.g., news, to multiple 

consumers. 

FIXML - Financial Information eXchange (FIX) Protocol- a messaging standard developed 

specifically for the real-time electronic exchange of securities transactions. 

These standards were created to describe specific types of data because XML, while useful, is too broad 

and cannot accurately capture the structure and requirements of these particular data needs. For 

example, XHTML is a standard based on XML that is used to build web pages, defining web page text 

such as headings, paragraphs, lists and links, and includes design-related information such as font, 

balding and underlining. If every user of XML was left on his or her own to define how content should 

be displayed on a website without the added structure provided by XHTMl, the web would have ended 

up as a collection of incompatible pages requiring a multitude of browsers to navigate. 

Reporting financial or performance-related information requires a standard, agreed-upon structure that 

defines how each element is related, and how the data is labeled and defined. 

The XBRL standard was developed to incorporate this needed structure. It is based on XML but it adds 

further specification relevant to financial, accounting and performance-related data for business and 

government reporting. XBRL incorporates consistent methods to report durations, reporting entities, 

reporting balances, aggregation of amounts, disaggregation of amounts and the ability to represent how 

calculations should be performed. 
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The diagram below illustrates some ofthe additional structure defined in XBRL (and not in XML) that 

makes it uniquely suitable for financial data. Each reported item, such as Cash as described below, has 

associated context linked to it: 

Presentation - human-readable label 

Label- computer-readable label 

Definition - description 

Calculation - explains how this concept relates to other concepts 

Context - added parameters specific to the type of data reported, e.g., units, currency 

Formulas - used to validate values input and check for outliers 

References - points to other literature that can help define the data 

This structure means that every XBRL application reports data the same way - without it, there would 

be no consistency, comparability or compatibility in the information reported. Relying on XML alone to 

report financial data would result in data being reported with differing structures, with each set of data 

requiring proprietary software to extract, report and analyze, and most importantly, would result in 

incomparable data. 
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Considerations in Government Performance and Financial Data 

Currently there are several pieces of legislation under consideration which recommend the use of data 

standards for the reporting of performance-related and financial data. We believe that any data 

standard chosen for these purposes should meet these requirements: 

Interoperable. Compatibility with existing standards allows market participants to leverage existing 

infrastructure and expertise. 

Free and freely available. Non-proprietary, open standards will reduce the cost of implementation and 

ongoing maintenance, and will allow for continuous competition in the market for tools that create and 

analyze the data. 

Broadly used. Use of a global standard with multiple, successful implementations will increase the 

potential to achieve the goals of any program. A broadly-used standard means that the software market 

for creation, reporting and analysis is well-developed, and government can leverage existing offerings as 

well as the technical expertise available. 

Specific to the task at hand. Selecting a data standard that best fits the reporting of financial and 

performance-related data will increase ease of implementation and maintenance and ensure that 

multiple government reporting applications of financial data are compatible. XBRL was specifically 

designed to support the reporting of financial and performance-related data through its structure. Using 

a less specific standard, such as XML, would limit the ability of the final implementation to produce 

comparable data as too much latitude could be given in the data definition process. Without 

comparable, consistent data, the performance of government programs simply cannot be evaluated in 

an efficient, cost-effective manner. 

"u""""""'''''' XBRL for Financial and Performance-Related Data 

We believe that XBRL best meets the requirements necessary ta report government financial ond 

performonce data in an efficient, cost-effective manner. XBRL is a free, open standard, broadly used 

oround the world and specific to the task of reporting financial and performance-related data. 

XBRL is currently in use in the U.S. for the reporting of corporate financial statements, bank call reports, 

mutual funds and credit ratings. Over 8,000 public companies and 8,000 banking institutions use XBRL 

today to submit their financial statements to the u.s. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the 

Federal Financial Institutions Examination Council (FFIEC), respectively. XBRL is used in Australia for 

government reporting requirements under a framework called Standardized Business Reporting (SBR), 

an initiative to reduce the business-ta-government reporting burden. This major government project 
82 


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streamlines business-to-government reporting through SBR-enabled accounting/payroll software. An 

SBR program is also underway in the Netherlands. 

XBRL unifies the manner in which information is reported, making it possible for all varieties of software 

to process the information. Before XBRL, financial reports were communicated in numerous formats 

such as plain text, CSV, HTMl, PDF, Microsoft Word or Excel, and in various XML formats. The use of 

multiple formats made it difficult for different software tools to process and communicate financial 

information. A single standardized format resolves the complications for the processing of reported 

information. Requiring the use of XBRL technical specification means that software used to create, 

report or analyze information in XBRL format can work with any XBRL other application. 

By implementing XBRL, one can expect a competitive market, resulting in better, faster, cheaper tools, 

driving down costs and increasing the efficiency of government reporting. Legislation that requires only 

the use of XML would result in government agencies building one-off data collection, reporting and 

analytical applications that are not compatible - that cannot leverage the same software tools, that use 

different labels and definitions to report the same concepts. Ultimately these applications will require 

proprietary software tools that will be unable to create consistent, comparable data to track and 

evaluate the performance of the agencies and their programs. 

XBRL provides a framework to define what is reported. This is essential for comparison of information. 

Consider the public company reporting example. Before XBRL, it was difficult to look at two different 

companies' financial reports and do a side-by-side comparison. Inconsistent definitions for the same 

reporting item made it difficult to do an apples-to-apples comparison. For example, one company may 

report total revenues as "Sales" while another reports revenues as "Revenues". XBRL provides the 

ability to define precise reporting terms that multiple companies can use while allowing the flexibility to 

create a human-readable label for these same reporting terms differently for each company, thus 

making it clear that "Sales" and "Revenues" are different labels for the same reporting term. 

An XBRL implementation for government spending would start with the creation of an agreed-upon 

dictionary of financial or performance-related terms, such as Program Cost, Money Received, and 

Project Status. Once the terms have been set, with associated definitions, labels, units of measure, and 

other parameters, all parties creating and consuming the data will use the same underlying definitions 

to communicate information. The ambiguity of data is eliminated and all members of the supply chain 

have the confidence that they understand the definitions of the underlying data. 

XBRL is an enabling technology, opening the door to better, free flowing financial reporting information. 

It provides the foundation for complex analytical applications. While XBRL allows for some flexibility, it 

has sufficient pre-defined structure such that when data is created in XBRL, it is automatically 

comparable. 
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XBRl was created specifically to structure, store and transmit financial and performance data; it is not 

designed to represent non-financial and non-performance related information such as biometric, 

chemical, genetic, medical,judicial and other information that needs to be structured, stored and 

transmitted by governments. Each of these data domains need to utilize domain specific standards 

already developed, or develop new ones where they are unavailable. A large number of these domains 

are already encompassed in the National Information Exchange Model (NIEM). 

Implementing XBRL for the reporting of financial or performance-related information requires the 

creation of an agreed-upon collection of reporting terms called a taxonomy. Concepts defined in a 

taxonomy can be seen as the fields in a form that government agencies collect such as Cash, Program 

Cost, Project Status, Contractor, or Subcontractor. Each item has a specific label, definition, formula, 

calculation, etc., and may be linked to other items in the taxonomy. 

Stakeholders to the reporting process should be involved in taxonomy development and review. During 

that process, concepts are defined, computer- and human-readable labels are assigned, definitions 

forlext strings, numeric values, units of measure, and other relevant context important to understanding 

the data are prescribed. XBRl expertise is also required to ensure that the proper technical specification 

is followed. 

A taxonomy developed for one reporting need, e.g., program performance reporting in adoption-related 

services, could easily "borrow" common concepts used to report performance in programs designed to 

subsidize nursing homes. Concepts such as Cash, Cost, Status, Contractor, etc. would continue to be 

defined exactly the same way from program to program. Doing so would thereby reduce the 

development work needed, eliminate redundancy of common elements, and ultimately making program 

performance data for nursing home services and adoption services comparable and understandable 

across government entities and all end users of such information. 

XBRl implementations, as with any reporting application, require ongoing support and maintenance 

which can be accomplished through regular review of the reported elements to ensure that required 

new elements are added, those no longer needed are removed, and definitions are revised as needed. 

Conclusion 

Data standards are a critical tool in efforts to cut costs, increase accuracy and timeliness, and improve 

efficiency in government programs, but it is important to require the use of a data standard that is 

specific to the needs at hand. Legislation that specifies only the use of a standard as broad and 

undefined as "XML" would open the door to the use of multiple reporting standards which would not 

meet the goal of reducing costs, or of enabling the tracking and comparison of government program 

performance. XMl alone is not the answer and if anything, would result in each agency developing its 
84 

f 

Chairman DAVIS. Thank you very much, Mr. Pryde. I appreciate 

all of your testimony. We appreciate your perspectives on this important topic. 

Before we move to questions, I would also like to insert a letter 

from the Kentucky Society of CPAs into the record, without objection, so ordered. 


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[The information follows: The Honorable Geoff Davis] 

f 

Chairman DAVIS. When we started this data standards effort, it 

was based on a question about what was going on in programs 

under the jurisdiction of the Committee. 

For me, from a personal perspective, to give you an idea, coming 

from the private sector, working with data integration in a retail 

business to business environment, early in the standardization 


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with electronic data transfer, before the Internet fully stood up, 

and then saw the beginning of that coming in, I sat down with the 

Subcommittee and I asked a question as the new Chairman, how 

do I get a cost rule up? 

For those in the audience who might not be familiar with that, 

the idea of saying if I take what would be called a ‘‘vendor master,’’ 

similar to what the gentlewoman, Ms. Roy, from NIEM talked 

about with data matching across standards, trying to find out exactly if we had the means of understanding who was on all of what 

programs with one given record, similar to some of the initiatives 

Mr. Doar is taking. 

The answer was that we cannot do that. That literally was the 

genesis moment from years of discussion about data standardization to move forward and talk about this. 

I appreciate all of you being here. We knew there was a lot of 

program overlap within our programs that creates additional cost 

in overhead, takes away taxpayer dollars, and does not help beneficiaries. 

We also knew there were serious questions about program effectiveness that current data could not successfully answer, especially 

when there are multiple programs that are involved, and the data 

standardization effort that we put in place will eventually get us 

to the point of being able to address these questions and concerns, 

we believe. 

So far, we have made considerable progress with child welfare, 

with Temporary Assistance to Needy Families, with Unemployment 

Insurance, and hopefully soon, child support enforcement. 

However, if we are going to take a beneficiary-centered approach 

to better using data standards in the administration of public benefit programs, it needs to be the most complete view, and that 

probably means programs outside the jurisdiction of this Subcommittee, like food stamps, Medicaid, housing, Medicare and Social Security. 

Mr. Doar, I will start with you. As we look to expand this effort, 

from your experience, what human service programs should we 

seek to include in this effort? 

Mr. DOAR. Well, the one we struggle with the most is schools. 

Those may be beyond your jurisdiction. 

Chairman DAVIS. We would be glad to bring that under the jurisdiction. 

Mr. DOAR. The data concerning children in the New York City 

Public School system is very firm. They are not participating, and 

they feel constrained, that they cannot participate. 

I think data concerning enrollment and what is happening in 

schools would be good for us in social services and it would be good 

for them in education. 

That would be the area that we are most frustrated by at this 

point. 

Child support enforcement is great. We have food stamps. We 

have Medicaid. We have cash assistance. We have housing. 

The one that we struggle with is schools. 

Chairman DAVIS. I appreciate your perspective. My wife and I 

have volunteered with kids and families on the edge for over 25 

years. 


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The one consistency, particularly now, is our oldest daughter is 

a school teacher dealing with at-risk children, and I am sure it is 

the same phenomenon in New York as in our small little part of 

the world, moving to multiple schools sometimes within a year, 

even within the schools, they cannot share information about the 

kids which creates a real educational challenge as well, not to mention the lack of connectivity. 

Ms. Zielinskie, your organization works primarily with seniors, 

correct? 

Ms. ZIELINSKIE. That is correct. 

Chairman DAVIS. What are the most common combinations of 

programs that seniors are usually eligible for but they may not receive? 

Ms. ZIELINSKIE. Sure. To help seniors reach and maintain economic security, we really need to look at housing, health care, and 

basic living costs. 

Obviously, housing is the biggest indicator of whether or not an 

individual will be able to reach and maintain economic security. 

That would also include heat assistance or LIHEAP. 

Second, we talk about health care. Obviously, if we take a look 

at poverty among seniors and actually include health care costs in 

that calculation, millions of seniors are in poverty and struggling 

to meet their health care costs. 

In addition, there is also the cost of food. 

Combining those programs as we take a look at helping low income seniors in America is critical. 

Chairman DAVIS. Mr. Doar or Ms. Zielinskie, either one, is there 

certain program data that you wish you had that could further 

streamline your organization’s efforts? 

Ms. ZIELINSKIE. Yes. 

Mr. DOAR. In my case, the other area that is a constraint is the 

Social Security Administration. While a lot of what we have done 

with HHS-Connect was limited because some data we get is a result of previously established matches with the Social Security Administration, and to the extent that we got data from them through 

a match, there are very strong prohibitions against our ability to 

share what they gave us outside our area. 

That is a problem. That leads HHS-Connect to not be complete, 

so a worker could look and see if there is any information, but 

could not be sure that by it not being there on a particular case 

that it is not there somewhere, if we got it from SSA. 

That would be another area where this initiative could be even 

more successful if that kind of Federal guidance allowed us to go 

in that direction. 

Chairman DAVIS. Thank you. Ms. Zielinskie, briefly. 

Ms. ZIELINSKIE. Sure. That being said, I think the Medicare 

Improvement for Patients and Providers Act or commonly known 

as MIPPA, has made great strides in how Social Security and the 

Low Income Subsidy data has been able to be shared with the 

states. 

I think when you start talking about challenges relating to access points of which data is available, it gets down to talking with 

states and lawyers about what is able to be shared and how it can 

be used. 


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It is not necessarily the data set so much it is an opportunity for 

access. Obviously, Medicaid is going to be the most telling in terms 

of if we are really talking about reaching the poorest individuals 

to receive support. 

It is more about guidance around how different agencies, business and community partners can share data while also protecting 

an individual’s privacy rights. 

Chairman DAVIS. Great. 

Mr. DOAR. Mr. Chairman, can I just add also, when we put 

Medicaid data on HHS-Connect, we only put the fact that they are 

eligible or receiving, they are a Medicaid recipient. 

Claims data is also very strictly limited in our ability to share. 

In many contexts, particularly with very vulnerable people, people 

who are high users of Medicaid, knowing the extent to which they 

are taking advantage of Medicaid provider services and those services are being claimed on their behalf would be very helpful in both 

limiting costs and getting better care. 

Chairman DAVIS. I appreciate the perspective that both of you 

have shared. I would say we met early on with the Inspector General, the Social Security Administration, and I think in all of the 

agencies we met with, the leadership understands the importance 

of sharing. 

There may be some issues that have to be addressed statutorily 

that would legitimately protect privacy but allow enscripted data 

be shared with those who are receiving the service as well. That 

will be a continued discussion as this implementation moves forward. 

With that, I would like to recognize the gentleman from Washington State, the former Chairman of this Subcommittee, Mr. 

McDermott, for five minutes. 

Mr. MCDERMOTT. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I want to commend Mr. Davis. We are going to miss you because this issue of 

data is a huge problem. 

I go back to the days in the State of Washington when we tried 

to put welfare/mental health data on a database so that when a 

mental patient showed up in this clinic and then showed up in that 

hospital, then showed up across the state, we would have some way 

of someone knowing what had happened before. We ran into all 

kinds of problems. 

I also have spent a lot of time in trying to get data in the military medical system and the Veterans Administration medical system to talk to one another. 

You have a proprietary system in the military that does not talk 

to the publicly developed system in the VA. 

A guy gets blasted in Afghanistan and gets put out of the Army 

and into the VA, his medical records—if you go to the hospital in 

Seattle, the doctors are sitting there with two computers. One with 

the military system and one with the VA system. It is absolutely 

insane. 

This data thing, it would make better health care, it would make 

better all of our social systems, so I commend Mr. Davis for bringing this. 

What I am interested in, Ms. Zielinskie, is this. You are talking 

Pennsylvania. How wide across the country, does your organization 


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work in other states doing this, or are there agencies in all the 50 

states? How is it working to use this, what you are trying to do is 

looking for people eligible for benefits. 

Ms. ZIELINSKIE. Correct. 

Mr. MCDERMOTT. You are using whatever data system. Tell me 

what is going on in the rest of the country. You are our only window into the 50. 

Ms. ZIELINSKIE. Thank you. Thank you for the question. 

We have actually been able to conduct outreach nationally, and 

we have been able to conduct outreach in other states in addition 

to Pennsylvania and are exploring opportunities in some of our 

partner states. 

I think to your point, different states have different make-ups or 

the puzzle of how their data sits. The information that we seek to 

gain access to is not terribly deep. 

It is very possible to pull automated files once you start getting 

to the right data folks that are in the different state departments. 

It crosses agencies and the landscapes are different, so where 

food stamps sits and where Medicaid sits—how it is set up in New 

York City is not necessarily how it is set up in Pennsylvania or Virginia or New Mexico. 

Mr. MCDERMOTT. Let me ask a question, a specific question. 

It is an issue you brought up, which is one that has troubled me 

because of this Committee. 

You have the people who have had middle class experience, and 

they lose their job, and 99 weeks later, they come to the end of that 

and they have nothing. 

Ms. ZIELINSKIE. Yes. 

Mr. MCDERMOTT. They have no idea of the social service system, number one. Number two, they are too embarrassed to go over 

to the welfare office and see if they qualify or wherever you have 

to go on this food stamp stuff. 

How does it work for states trying to find those people or most 

states just saying if we do not hear about it, we do not need to 

worry about it? How are they dealing with the 99er’s who are out 

there eating into their 401(k)’s to keep a house but are eligible for 

food stamps? 

Ms. ZIELINSKIE. I think there is a wide variety in what different states are doing. I do not have necessarily that information 

here, but would be more than happy to get back to you about other 

efforts. 

I know there are a lot of other national advocacy organizations 

engaged in talking about 99er’s. 

To your point, about 45 percent of the folks that we help with 

the unemployment insurance exhaustee outreach project are over 

the age of 50. Exactly what you are saying—they are spending 

down their small nest egg. They never thought they were going to 

be in the situation that they have found themselves in. These are 

the individuals that are in great risk of foreclosure. 

How it all connects is very integrated. I almost pulled a quote 

of an individual who is an MBA, and for two years, he has been 

searching for a job. It was a challenge for him to overcome the stigma and pride and call us. Obviously he is a hard worker if he was 

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coming that stigma is something that I think illustrates how important it is to not only think about data in terms of fraud and creating efficiencies, but also that it is absolutely critical to think 

about it in terms of how we can help folks that are teetering on 

falling into poverty. 

Mr. DOAR. I would just add the programs that we run in New 

York City are well known to the populous. There is lots of promotional activities that go on. Food stamps, USDA is running advertisements promoting food stamp benefits. 

The number of people who take advantage of these benefits are 

quite large now in the City, food stamps and Medicaid particularly. 

In the case that you talk about, people who exhausted unemployment insurance tend to turn to health insurance, public health insurance first, and perhaps food stamp benefits, and then last, 

TANF. 

The other thing is that in New York City, the Mayor continues 

to have an expectation that people who are struggling should work 

and personal responsibility matters. 

We have to be careful about the extent to which we are overly 

promoting the receipt of public assistance as a substitute for personal responsibility and employment. 

Mr. MCDERMOTT. Could I ask one more question? 

Chairman DAVIS. Briefly, yes. 

Mr. MCDERMOTT. Yesterday, we eliminated the Social Services 

Block Grant. How much of that comes to your Department and 

what is it used for? 

Mr. DOAR. Well, at HRA, the Adult Protective Services Program 

is a program that serves our most, most vulnerable populations. 

We have about 9,000 people who have been determined unable to 

care for themselves in any way. 

That is a program we are going to have to run, and people are 

going to have to serve, 75 percent of the funding for that program 

in HRA comes from the Federal Government. 

To the extent that we get less SSBG money for Adult Protective 

Services, the Mayor will have to make up the difference, and that 

is a fiscal burden on us, and it is not a population we can neglect, 

it is a particularly vulnerable population. 

I think from the Mayor’s perspective, if he had a choice of Federal programs that are in need of reduction, that might not be the 

first one, particularly as it affects Adult Protective Services. 

Mr. MCDERMOTT. Thank you. 

Chairman DAVIS. The gentleman’s time has expired. The Chair 

now recognizes Mr. Paulsen from Minnesota for five minutes. 

Mr. PAULSEN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. To the panel, there 

was recently an announcement for this year’s Human Services IT 

Conference, it is called ISM, and the announcement listed sessions 

on the usual new service delivery models, emerging technologies, 

and general best practices. 

What caught my eye and drew a little bit of attention, I think, 

was the session description that said this ‘‘The era of big data has 

arrived at ISM. State and Federal agencies are looking to advanced 

data analytic capabilities, improvement predictive modeling, to reveal patterns of behaviors and outcomes that were previously burVerDate Mar 15 2010 19:17 Oct 29, 2013 Jkt 074807 PO 00000 Frm 00094 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 I:\WAYS\OUT\74807.XXX 74807

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ied in mountains of data. ISM 2012 Data Analytic Sessions show 

how big data can turn into big discoveries.’’ 

Mr. McDonald, how are big analytic efforts different than what 

our agencies are doing now, and do you agree this is what agencies 

should be doing in the future? Is this the direction to go? 

What is the difference between data and data analytics today 

versus 30 years ago? 

Mr. MCDONALD. Sure. The answer is yes. I think what is happening is the amount of data is doubling extremely fast, just from 

traditional organic data. 

With all the new digital data that is being created and leveraged 

across the different agencies, you can imagine the data that they 

are having to wrestle with is overwhelming. 

You really have to start looking at instituting business rules and 

analytics to help mine that data based upon the kinds of goals that 

you set and the outcomes you want to get, and more importantly, 

how do you push that out to the front line Government workers so 

they are able to make decisions more quickly on things that cross 

in front of them. 

I would say today people are overwhelmed with data and we 

have to use technology to take that overwhelming aspect out of it 

and try to give them the actions they should take based upon what 

is sitting in front of them, and again, whether it is private corporations or Government agencies, they are all struggling with this. 

I would say what has happened is the amount of data has 

changed over the past 30 years, but more importantly, the complexity of it has changed as well. 

As you talk about this unstructured to big data, it really is 

marrying up new data types with traditional data types which says 

you have to understand how to read and integrate both, but more 

importantly, take that confusion out of it, simplify it, and give people on the front lines the types of activities and actions they should 

take based upon what rules you set in place and the outcomes you 

want to get. 

Mr. PAULSEN. Let me ask this for the rest of the panel because 

we are going to find a lot of information obviously in these mountains of data that are out there. 

Ms. Zielinskie, I think in your testimony you mentioned that we 

are going to be able to connect individuals to benefits, they may not 

have been getting these benefits before, we are going to be able to 

tie that together. 

How about the converse? Will we be able to make strives down 

the road to make sure only, for instance, people that are eligible 

for programs like low income people that are able to get welfare 

benefits get those benefits, that programs that require work activity, can we ensure that actually happens? 

Can we tie the data in that fashion to make sure we are going 

to see some progressive results there? 

Ms. ZIELINSKIE. I think there is absolutely opportunity to be 

comprehensive in how we use data. We certainly do not want to 

have people who are not eligible for these programs receiving them. 

That being said, we want to make sure that people who are eligible are able to access them so they can get themselves out of poverty and to self sufficiency. 


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Certainly there are accuracy components of using data. If we look 

at, for example, SNAP in Pennsylvania, there is a payment accuracy challenge of one-tenth of one percent. There is a fraud issue 

of one-tenth of one percent. 

I think that it is critical that when we are talking about data 

that we do not just talk about it in the frame of fraud. We also talk 

about it in terms of making sure we are helping the right people 

in a comprehensive way so they can get out of poverty. 

Mr. PAULSEN. Mr. Doar, in terms of waste, fraud and abuse? 

Mr. DOAR. Yes, we absolutely see the benefits of this kind of 

sharing of data to see the inconsistencies in income reporting and 

work status and household status that would allow us to be sure 

our programs are being expended correctly. 

The most exciting use of big data from our standpoint in the City 

is the potential use to identify households where there is a potential child welfare issue in the future. 

You could use data to find what are risk factors in advance of 

unfortunate circumstances happening. 

That is where I think right now we are trying to find what tells 

a child welfare protective services worker, what do they need to 

know that would lead them to say this is a more potentially at risk 

family than another family, so we can prevent tragedies from occurring. 

Mr. PAULSEN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield back. 

Chairman DAVIS. I thank the gentleman. The Chair now recognizes Mr. Berg from North Dakota for five minutes. 

Mr. BERG. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I am not sure exactly 

where to start, but it keeps coming back to me that nothing measured gets managed, and I think out there, nothing that is measured, it will not get managed unless it is measured, but it will not 

get managed unless it is looked at. 

That is what I cringe at, just the mountain of information, a lot 

of really great information that would really help us as policy makers make decisions when we get to the point where we are going 

to make decisions. 

I am looking at kind of the big picture. My question really relates 

to standardization. Again, kind of boiling this down, we are going 

to look at a program and we make a big effort to really look at that 

program, but within our scope, there are so many other programs 

that affect that individual that is within that program, and yet we 

are just kind of looking at that program somewhat in isolation. 

We are looking at this international child support law and what 

it is doing. One of the things we are looking at there is tapping into 

the National Directory of New Hire’s. 

We are kind of looking at that as a way to expedite a lot of information and hopefully lower the cost of a lot of these programs. 

That information will be right there. 

I think that is ultimately what we want to do, have some uniformity and make sure we are delivering those very efficiently and 

cost effectively. 

Maybe it is kind of a bigger question, but the question is how 

would standardization help us when we are reviewing and evaluating programs? 


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Is it worth the effort to move towards standardization because 

that benefit is going to be there? 

It is kind of a question for each member of the panel. 

Mr. DOAR. It would absolutely help us. One of the theories of 

the post-welfare reform world was that we have a combination of 

programs that can serve as work supports. We want to know if people are working and taking advantage of SNAP, public health insurance, perhaps other forms of assistance. 

It is good to know how those programs work together for an individual client, and whether they work together, for how many. 

The analytical opportunities that we can see if we get greater 

standardization across programs so we can know who is a multiple 

program user and who is not and why not. 

I absolutely agree about the National New Hire’s database. I 

come from the child support program. It is a tremendous resource 

and has greater potential than it is currently being used for. 

There is no question that standardization will allow us to see not 

just how these programs work by themselves, but how they work 

in concert with other programs and with employment, which is I 

think what we are all trying to do. 

Ms. ZIELINSKIE. Thank you for the question. The primary focus 

of our work has been on older Americans. There has been great 

work done with the Elder Index, which does exactly what you are 

talking about. 

I think absolutely standardization around what an individual 

needs to reach and maintain economic security is critical, as we explore how to support our older Americans. 

That being said, we also need to take into consideration that the 

cost of living in New York City, for example, is probably different 

than in North Dakota. 

Mr. BERG. Some parts of North Dakota get pretty expensive. 

Mr. ZIELINSKIE. The Elder Index does that. Wider Opportunities for Women and the National Council on Aging are also engaged in a lot of work around economic security for older Americans. 

I guess a caution as we look at standardization is that it is critical to also need to look at the environment in which those individuals are trying to thrive. 

Mr. MCDONALD. I would just add that I think the standardization has to be the starting point for trying to take this complexity 

out of the programs and agencies and the investment in that will 

reduce the amount of future investment that you have to deploy on 

programs for them to be able to share information and get value 

out of that information, both from a cost savings standpoint, but 

more importantly, how to reallocate it to the right programs and 

the right missions. 

I think it is just fundamentally the right place to start. 

Mr. PRYDE. I think one of the advantages is you do not get the 

data stuck in separate systems. If everyone is using a different system, there is no way these systems can talk to each other. If we 

have standards across an agency or among agencies, one system 

can talk to another seamlessly. 

I can request some information, that request can go down to all 

those systems and pull it on the fly, which is not the case where 


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you have different computer screens to log into each different system. 

Mr. BERG. Thank you. I will yield back, Mr. Chairman. 

Chairman DAVIS. I thank the gentleman. The Chair now recognizes Dr. Boustany from Louisiana for five minutes. 

Mr. BOUSTANY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Under our Subcommittee’s jurisdiction, we have two programs, SSI and Unemployment Insurance, that both have been deemed high-error programs by the Office of Management and Budget. 

In fact, in fiscal year 2011 alone, they combined to account for 

$18.3 billion in improper payments. 

Mr. McDonald, I read through your testimony and you had a lot 

of detail in there referencing the work that you all have done in 

Michigan with regard to fraudulent child support. 

I would like you to elaborate for the Committee a little more 

about that work and what steps could we take at the Federal level 

to implement some of your best practices? 

Mr. MCDONALD. Sure. I think what the State of Michigan decided to do was build a platform that integrated its information 

across all their different programs. 

They knew by doing so they would not only provide better customer satisfaction to those people that are using the programs, but 

they would link that information to find fraud and abuse, and then 

take that extra money and apply it back to those programs that 

were under funded. 

Think about the simplicity if I come and get a new driver’s license but I have not been paying my child support, instantly, you 

are able to connect those two, and start trying to recoup those benefits, right? 

Just the simplicity of connecting different programs and agencies’ 

information gives you that instant insight of first, being a better 

provider to those taxpayers, but secondarily, catching fraud at the 

moment it happens instead of having to wait a year later to determine if we have been over paying or under paying in certain areas. 

I think it is very common practice on the business side and I 

think it is now becoming an opportunity in the Government to start 

looking at that same benefit they can reap by consolidating the 

data, standardizing the data, and giving access and interoperability 

to the different agencies in a quick fashion, so they can catch 

things both proactively and defensively. 

Mr. BOUSTANY. Thank you. At a time when we know we have 

a number of duplicative programs with a lot of overlap and we are 

dealing with budgetary problems, looking at the effectiveness of 

these programs is critically important. 

It seems to me what you just described would also help us in our 

oversight role, sort of paring down, figuring out how to most efficiently use those resources. 

Mr. MCDONALD. I would agree. I think too often people ask 

about how much money do you need, and I think not enough is put 

into what will be the impact or return of that investment. 

In most cases, what we are seeing, especially like the State of 

Michigan, they spent a few million dollars, but they got $15 for 

every dollar they invested. 


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Who would not like that formula for investing, to try to take 

costs out and return that money back, right? 

As you can see, understanding the impact, but also everyone now 

operates under a similar fashion. Whether you are Bank of America or CMS, in reality, projects are 12 month based, they are program based, you have to spend money and see that return in a 

quick fashion, but you have to have a view as to where am I going 

to be in three years, am I incrementally improving the overall process versus this program approach and a 12 month approach. 

Mr. BOUSTANY. Thank you. From the time the first set of data 

standards were included in the child welfare programs to the next 

iteration of TANF and Unemployment programs, the language 

went from suggesting a standard like XBRL to suggesting XML. 

Some of the concerns that were expressed was that XBRL was 

too expensive or too complicated to implement, and the feedback we 

received was that we should only recommend that the agencies implement XML. 

Mr. Pryde, could you respond to those criticisms for us? Is it too 

complicated or too expensive? 

Mr. PRYDE. It depends on what you are trying to do. XBRL is 

specifically designed for reporting financial and performance data. 

It is not designed for reporting information like biometric information or information on human resources cases. It is specifically 

done for financial reporting. 

To use XBRL for sharing information about a child’s condition or 

operational issues, XBRL would not be appropriate in that case. It 

would be silly to do that. 

There are other standards that would be more appropriate in 

those cases. 

However, if you are going to report financial reporting information like how much is this agency spending, how much are we 

spending on this program, what period are we spending it, how 

much is wasted and what is the cost, et cetera, then XBRL is an 

appropriate standard to use. 

If you ask that question, let’s use XBRL to standardize every single piece of data, yes, that would be correct, it would not be appropriate to do that. 

Mr. BOUSTANY. I thank you. Mr. Chairman, I yield back. 

Chairman DAVIS. I thank the gentleman. The Chair now recognizes Mr. Reed from New York for five minutes. 

Mr. REED. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you again to the 

witnesses on the second panel. 

Being from New York, I want to spend a little time with my fellow New Yorker here. 

If we could, I am very interested. I read your testimony, in particular, pages six and seven, talking about the lessons you learned 

as you implemented the programs in your agency in New York 

City. 

I want to kind of delve into a little bit more detail as to what 

you could offer us from your experience in implementing that, in 

particular, and also the interaction you referenced, the problem 

with Social Security numbers, the Social Security Administration. 

Obviously, they are such a large agency with tons of data that 

needs to be part of this conversation, in my opinion. 


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I am very interested in your point of view on what lessons you 

learned that we can learn here in Washington, D.C. 

Mr. DOAR. Well, one of the lessons we learned is that the direction from the top had to be emphatic, that the lawyers had to do 

everything they possibly could and be as imaginative and as persistent in trying to make legal and appropriate, not inappropriate, 

arguments for allowing the sharing of data. 

Bureaucracies, as I think the previous panel mentioned, are inherently narrow and afraid, and afraid of doing something that 

someone may say in rare circumstances it was wrong or not consistent with policy. 

That was a very important lesson. We really pushed our lawyers 

to really think creatively and set up the process where those agencies that received data had to sign a form with the commissioners 

committed to enforcing confidentiality and security rules on employees that violated them, and to report back to the giving agency 

so that we were consistent. 

We had an advantage in New York State, social services is governed by sort of an umbrella agency, and that is mine, so I could 

delegate to sister agencies the role of being social services and in 

a social services’ purpose. 

One lesson is to get the lawyers and the mayors, chief executives’ 

position be very strongly felt that this was something we were 

going to try hard to do. 

Social Security Administration data is data we use now in certain programs. We use it based on established agreements with 

SSA that have taken a long time to be established, that have allowed us to get data. 

Their prohibitions against sharing of that data are very firm. 

One of the things our lawyers had to do was not allow that data 

from that source to be used in the way that we wanted to, and that 

is a problem that we think we would like to work on nationally. 

Also, there are HIPAA requirements involving the sharing of 

Medicaid or health data, which we basically agree with. This is private data. This is something that should not be shared inappropriately. 

Claims data as opposed to just being on Medicaid, but actually 

just how much is being expended on the client in Medicaid and 

where is strictly prohibited, so we do not share that, and that is 

a problem, which we think we could make greater work with this 

if we had that available to our sister agencies and to ourselves in 

a way that it could be used. 

Finally, we would constantly come up to situations—I am on a 

taskforce that looks at the gap between African American children 

and white children in schools. 

We know that exists. Education wants us to work with them on 

that, and we want to work with them on that, but we do not share 

any data. 

We do not know about the use of public assistance within schools 

by children and they do not know it either. In both cases, I think 

it would be useful. 

Those are the frustrations that have occurred. It required real 

work. It required somebody holding the bureaucratic narrow indiVerDate Mar 15 2010 19:17 Oct 29, 2013 Jkt 074807 PO 00000 Frm 00100 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 I:\WAYS\OUT\74807.XXX 74807

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vidual agencies accountable, and it ran into some barriers we just 

could not get through with regard to sharing data. 

Mr. REED. I appreciate that. Mr. McDonald, from your experience in the private sector, if we leave SSA out of this conversation 

and do not really focus on that, do you see a problem, how that 

could impact the development of standardization across the agencies? 

It is such a large agency and such a large amount of data. I just 

want to know from your perspective, would that work in the private sector? 

Mr. MCDONALD. I think in the private sector, they have come 

to realize the importance of standardization across corporations. I 

think through the evolution of how they have gone through mergers, acquisitions and growth, they have all had to realize that unless we standardize on whether it is financial data, product data, 

or customer data, how will they be able to roll these companies and 

report on that. 

I think no matter the size, there are enterprises bigger than 

many of the agencies that have done that. 

Is it doable? Yes. Is it required? Yes. I think it is a matter of putting the energy and the standards behind it that says let’s adopt 

this. 

I think what you will see is once you start, five years from now 

you will say why did we not do that ten years ago. 

It is just a matter of making that first step and getting everyone 

committed to this is what we have to do to get to where we want 

to be, so let’s stop talking about it. 

Mr. REED. I appreciate that. With that, my time is expired. I 

yield back. 

Chairman DAVIS. I thank the gentleman from New York. I just 

have to tell you the little huddle that was going on over here in 

the early part of Mr. Reed’s question, your testimony has inspired 

two of our subcommittee members to come up with another piece 

of legislation to compliment what we are doing for data sharing on 

the health care side, our two doctors on the Subcommittee. 

As we wrap up, I would like to ask one final question. It is open 

to all to comment. I would like to start first with Mr. Pryde, then 

with Mr. McDonald, on this issue of analytics and standards. 

I am going to preface this by saying coming into Government 

from a world dealing with implementations, focusing on internal 

rate of return, and the idea that I can make an investment and 

know, particularly for those of you who have all dealt with what 

you might call a return on information, a dollar spent on information improvement can usually return itself 15, 20 or 50 times what 

was spent in improvements of efficiency, throughput, the agility to 

respond to unique customer needs because of that access to information. 

Unfortunately, the Congressional Budget Office is trapped in another era and focuses on static rather than dynamic scoring, which 

is our issue to address in looking at the value of this. 

Speaking of value, I would appreciate it if Mr. Pryde could talk 

a little bit about the importance of standards. I am very familiar 

with XBRL, not from a programming standpoint, but one of the 

very first pieces of legislation that I introduced, the Transparency 


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and Financial Reporting Act back in 2005, was directly built 

around the idea of using things like XBRL and XML to harmonize 

processes, bring best practices to the SEC and other related organizations, with financial services accountability. 

Also, frankly, to offset some of the huge compliance costs imposed with Legacy systems and Sarbanes-Oxley. 

I was wondering if you could comment on the value that comes 

in terms of pay back by the implementation of these kinds of common standards, and then the analytics that would come from some 

real world examples. 

I am quite open to the private sector since the Government is 

generally a lagging indicator of what is happening out in the country. 

Mr. PRYDE. Sure. We recently issued a white paper covering 

how much Government reporting that is required by companies. 

We can make that available to the Committee. 

It kind of backs up what Ms. Roy was saying, where 80 percent 

of the information was repeated information that they were reporting to different agencies, so you get a massive amount of duplication in data because no one is sharing the data, there is no way 

of sharing it. You get significant efficiencies through that. 

In addition, there was an implementation that was carried out 

by the FDIC five years ago to collect call report data. This information was called call report data, because they had to go around and 

call everyone when they submitted the data incorrectly. 

With XBRL, they could check the data on submission, that reduced all the manual costs that were involved in checking on the 

data and getting it correct. 

A lot of this stuff, once you standardize it, you have created a 

platform for automation. Everything can be automated. 

For example, every SEC filing that is filed with the SEC we analyze. We run 12,000 checks on it. We find out so much information 

about these companies which was impossible to do before in an 

automated way. 

We have this information go back to companies, go back to the 

auditors. You end up in an era where you create layers of things 

that you could never dream of doing before, which can save massive amounts of costs and can completely make redundant very 

time-consuming and manual processes that you had in the past. 

Mr. MCDONALD. I would just add that if you think about it, 

without the standards, even if you got everyone to agree that they 

wanted to track return on investment or the IRR for programs or 

whatever the right metrics are, without the standardization, it is 

still going to be tough to measure the effectiveness and how they 

are calculating it. They are all using different methods. 

We have a couple of customers that have gone on record, the 

State of Michigan, and they have advertised that they save over $1 

million a day. That does not mean they are not spending the money 

back on the programs, but think about the effectiveness of a state 

saving $1 million a day and reinvesting that back into their programs. 

It is through this investment and the technology to put it all together, set standards, and be able to share this information. 


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If I save $1 million in one department, I give it to another department, and they are effectively better utilizing that cash and 

that investment. 

They in effect are making, like you said, 15/25 percent back on 

that investment. 

We have had other customers like AT&T who say with our ana- lytic platform, we saved $1 billion over a ten year period. You ask 

them, were these big things. They said no, it is little things. 

It was hundreds of thousands of little things that the front line 

workers were able to see and solve or fix in a quick manner that 

allowed AT&T to use those advance analytics, which get deployed 

across the way, it is operationalized in all of their operations, to 

save them $1 billion. 

Again, that possibility is capable here for the Federal Government as well. 

Ms. ZIELINSKIE. Using standardized data can have many positive impacts. It can help people who need services in a most comprehensive fashion; it can help reduce costs by being able to determine eligibility cost-effectively; and it can help in administering 

services as efficiently as possible, and evaluating programs in 

terms of true value. 

I look forward to working with all of you to figure out how we 

can prove this and really have a paradigm shift, so talking about 

data and how we deliver services and embracing the power of the 

data that the Government has is not innovation but rather the 

norm in terms of how we do business. 

Chairman DAVIS. Thank you. Just as a case in point, since I am 

married to a Bronx girl, Mr. Doar will get to have the last word. 

Mr. DOAR. Thank you very much. I am from Brooklyn but we 

love the Bronx. 

When the Deputy Mayor started the project with the Mayor’s endorsement, we had an ROI all the way through it. When we were 

talking to our partners in the technology industries, we were very 

clear that we are going to make an investment here with your firm 

or this operation, but we want to see it returned more so to the taxpayers and to our outcomes. 

The key benefit was time and energy. We are reducing costs of 

staff by sharing information. We believe that is happening. 

You should also know that part of the return on investment that 

the City sees is the extent to which Federal claiming sources are 

maximized. 

There is a part of this that involves making sure that everybody 

who should be getting Medicaid or should be getting food stamps 

does, and that will lead to greater cost across the Federal Government. 

Chairman DAVIS. Thank you very much. I appreciate all of you 

taking the time to come in and share from various parts of the 

country. 

It has been very helpful. I believe this may not be an issue that 

brings in crowds of people and emotional activists on either end of 

the spectrum, but I am admonished to the old baseball rule that 

baseball is a pretty easy game, it is just throwing and catching and 

hitting, and in business, it is these basic building blocks that will 

make the difference in the long run. 


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I believe that what we are all discussing here today is at the 

foundation of transforming our Government in the 21st Century to 

be something that all Americans can be proud of. 

If members have additional questions, they are going to submit 

them to you directly. What I would request is that you submit your 

answers back to the Committee as well so we can get them into the 

record so all have access to that. 

With that, thank you again. Thank you to our guests and Committee members, and with that, we stand adjourned. 

[Whereupon, at 12:26 p.m., the Subcommittee was adjourned.] 


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Member Submissions For The Record 

The Honorable Geoff Davis 


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102 

Questions For The Record 

The Honorable Geoff Davis to Mr. Pryde 


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Questions for the Record from Chairman Davis to Mr. Campbell 

Pryde 

Hearing on the Use of Technology to Better Target Benefits 

and Eliminate Waste, Fraud, and Abuse 

April 19, 2012 

Ways and Means Subcommittee on Human Resources 
103 


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Mr. Pryde, your testimanywashelpful toundentand XML and now XBRL. What would you have 

recanmentled ass SOIutioo 10 ya:lt$ago, and how doesthat differ from what you are wggesting 

today1What do you thinklhesdutioo will be 10yoorsfromno.v?lsthewcrk d ootting standards 

ever done and If nol. why mould we even start? 

XBRL was first conceived of ten years ago by a group of ,ertified pubti{'a-ccountants who considered the 

use ofxMl for financiat inrormatkm reporting and realized that, on its OWn, XMl was not a viable 

solution. XBRl was developed to add the structure thatis critical 10 creating a workable solution hi 

report financial and perforrnance-mlated information, In ten,years, the information reported and 

definitions used for reportingcOllld very likely differ greatly from the standards used today, artd the type 

of information that policymakers, regulators, analysts and others want conveyed will certainly change, 

but ifxllRl i5 used,the underlying data standard will easily adapt with those changes. XBRl is flexible 

el1(lUgh that it can be adapted to changes ih reporting requirements, but it maintains the same 

underlying ,structure. The primary advantage of using X6Rl is thatthe software, expertise and 

infrastructum used today to report data wHi undoubtedly still be appliCa'ble ten'years from now for 

different reporting needs. 

As new technoio'gies eVoive to further define the meaning of data, there may be a need to'move data 

from XBRL to new data formats not available: today. With XBRL already in place, the hard work of 

moving from a paper-based storage mechanism to the next. evolution of data standards wil'l be 

complete. XBRl Ciln provide immediate benefits today and also provide an easy transition path to swi!l:h 

to other formats in the future. Given that XBRL is:a free and open, international data standard, the 

compatibility and comparability of data will only be further enhanced as more impiementatiom of XBRL 

for government or business repDrtil1g are put in place, 

Mr. Pryde, duringthehairlngyou be!;!an to tElSpOlld toti1ecriticisnthat a aandard likeXBRL is. 

too ccmplicatecl and expei1Sve to implement, Could you pleas;) expand 00 your preliiouspoints? 

Thank you for following up on'this Important issue, XBRL is not too complicated "oct expensive to 

implement jf used for the fight purposes. As I explained during the hearing, XBRl would not be the right 

,standard to use for things such as biometric inforniiltion, In,the same way that you would not use a 

standardized shipping container to move crude oii or coal, or an oil ta,nker to move consumer products, 

there is an appropriate standard to use for different types of data. 

XBRl is the best and most appropriate standard to use for anything financial or program pe'rfofrmmcerelate'd. The' t<"chnkal specificatfon for XBRl is, designed specifically for those uses and whife it may 

<lppear som~what more complex than XML, therein lies the benefit. A simpler standard like XMl can he 

everything to, everyone which essentially means it can be transform <:cd into "II k'inds of applications that 

produce data that is no' compatible and not comparable. XBRl's more rigorous technical requirements 

mean that the data it produces is truly a standard and an aid to those who wish to lrad performance 

and compare metrics across tim0 periods, Thlll's how XBRL is lIsed today - to analyze thousands of 

public companies' financial performance and to measure tile performance of government program.> as it 

does in the standardized business reporting programs, in Australia and the Netherlands, These latter 
104 

The Honorable Geoff Davis to Mr. Sheldon 


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programs report on funds spent and performance of programs in those wltntrie. - all in X6RL, For the 

US government, a single government~wide taxonomy could be created, leveraging much of the work 

already done and in US~ for business reporting. 

Questions for the Record from Chairman Davis to ACF Acting 

Assistant Secretary George Sheldon 

Hearing on the Use of Technology to Better Target Benefits 

and Eliminate Waste, Fraud, and Abuse 

April 19, 2012 

Ways and Means Subcommittee on Human Resources 
105 


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House Ways and Means Subcommittee on Human Resources 

Questions for the Record 

April 19, 2012 Hearing 

HHS Witness: ACF Acting Assistant Secretary George Sheldon 

Question 1: Your written testimony mentions ihe Office of Management and Budget's 

working group on data exchange standards, which is the same one specified by the 

statutory language. Can you teli us more about how this group will functIon? What other 

agencies and stakeholders. will be included? Has the group met? If not, when can we 

expect it to meet? 

Answer: Based on preliminary conversations we have had with OMB, we know they 

are working to develop the parameters and membership of the working group, Once 

those deciSions are made, they plan to hold meetings of the interagency working group 

and anticipate the first meeting will be held this summer. As provided in the statute, this 

effort also will include a consultative process with Tribes and State and local 

organizations, 

QuestiOri 2: It seems there are multiple ways in which NIEM is beginning or already 

attempting to implement NIEM. Which such heavy focus on it, what financial and 

human resources is HHS devoting to this new effort? How is NIEM included in the 

annual budge! request process? Will this current approach be sufficient as NIEM 

increase in scope and scale? 

Answer: The Department of Health and Human Services has established the health 

and human services domains within NIEM, Funding for these activities include 

contributions from the Office of National Coordinator under its standards and 

interoperability initiatives as well as in-kind support from the Administration for Children 

and Families and the Office of the Chief Information Officer. As the scope and scale of 

NIEM activities increases, we anticipate aciditional resources from participating 

agencies will be required to support the NIEM PMO. 

Question 3: Both the Departments of Justice and Homeland Security have previously 

or are currently hosting the NIEM project management office (PMO). It is our 

understanding that the PMO is designed to rotate, ideally to a new agency so they could 

provide fresh ideas and take an increased role in shaping the future of NIEM. HHS is 

currently the only other voting agency member on the NIEM steering committee that has 

not hosted the N!EM PMO. With DHS reaching the same four-year mark that DOJ did 

when it handed off the NIEM PMO, has HHS considered being the next to provide a 

home to NIEM? Why or why not? 

Answer: To date, the Department has concentrated its work with NIEM 'On providing 

value in the new health and human resources domains, and building communil.ies of 

interest The Department has not made plans or proposals to host the NIEM PMO, We 

look forward to continuing to work our partners on NIEM, and if adequate resources are 

available would consider serVing as the host agency in the future, 
106 

Submissions for the Record 

Steven D. Harris 


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the Hybrid Cognitive Task Analysis system developed by Dr. Missy Cummings and her team at MIT's 

Humans and Automation Laboratory (HAL) (httjo:!!web.mit.edu!aeroastro!labs!halab/aboutshtml). Dr. 

Cmnmings is presently on the technical staff of the Office of Naval Research. An initiative to develop 

standards for symbology for the FAA's Next-Generation Air Traffic Control System. sponsored by the 

Human Factors program at FAA Headquarters (Code ANG-C 1) is moving in this same direction. 

Private sector research is also awakening to the possibilities of improved interoperability. A 

recent smart-grid initiative by General Electric's Global Research Laboratory concluded that 

improvements in information exchange can have both pos-itive and negative impacts on the nationTs 

electric power distribution infrastructure. A Committee of the Association for the Advancement of 

Medical Instrmnentation (AAMI) is exploring development of an international standard for medical 

devices, in which the prospective benefits ofNIEM for improved interoperabilitv among medical 

devices and electronic medical records is being evaluated. These and other research and development 

projects. funded by various public and private sources, have at least one thing in common - improved 

exchange of information between and among machines and humans. Much of this important work is 

being done by innovative small businesses in support of these large enterprises. These efforts offer 

both near-tenn and long-ternl benefits to improving HSI, and deserve the Subcommittee's attention. 

For decades, this country has maintained its economic strength and security by maintaining 

strategic focus on technological leadership - particularly in information teclmology. If we are to 

sustain our strength in the challenging economic climate ahead. it is imperative that we understand the 

importance of that singular fact, and continue to exploit advances in information technology in every 

aspect of government. I thank the Subcommittee for its valuable work in this area. 

Statement submitted for the record by 

Steven D. Harris. President, Rational, LLC, Pasadena, MD. 
108 

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